That’s my favorite version of Sun Ra’s “Enlightenment,” love the vocals. I got turned on to this song when I saw the Elephant 6 Collective all getting together on their “Holiday Surprise” tour. They ended the set with an enormous, amazing cover of this song. There were like 16 musicians all performing this thing and chanting the lyrics together. They kept playing it while they marched off the stage, through the audience, and out into the streets.
Yeah its my favorite version too. It wasn’t on youtube for very many years (the less great versions were) so I couldnt easily share it the way I can now.
I always wondered whether he had other vocal tunes like this one, but I’ve never heard any. Do you know about this?
not really like Enlightenment, but the album he did of disney songs is really good stuff
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That… exists!? Pumped to check this out when I get a chance, thanks!
This is my favorite sun ra vocal melody
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There’s this really cool french doc about Sun Ra that I had a tape(!) dupe of but I’ll be danged if I can find it on the yourtube
I think then you might like what I posted above. At least, I super like both them and The Bad Plus
Try E.S.T., in a similar melody-groove; bass/drums/piano, some electronics play on the bass, very good melody on the piano:
They stick to this for a decade but their last album started to get more outre; it’s easily my favorite:
Insanely good at building a groove’s intensity for a decade of minutes.
As similar as it is, for some reason Bad Plus just doesn’t work for me; I’d have to work to articulate it.
All the best big boys party.
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A lot of people call them clinical, or too enamored of their own technical skill. Band nerds run amok, or the Yngwie Malmsteens of acid jazz, or whatever.
I can see where that vibe comes from. I mean we ain’t talkin about Sun Ra here (and: all these dudes are white). Compare them to another white power trio, Medeski Martin & Wood, which is much dirtier and more groove-based.
But, like say Jacob Collier, they’re so talented and their arrangements so interesting that, for me, they transcend their own stiltedness and just loop back around to plain awesome again. A significant part of this is due to Dave King, a truly spectacular and imaginative drummer, and as a drummer myself maybe I give his contribution too much weight. But there it is.
i love this band
bad plus is cool but not an everyday listen. it’s ultimately just not more than the sum of its parts. lots of cool stuff does not great music make
like, dream theater are super talented and their arrangements are usually pretty cool and you can learn a lot from it, but it’s not an endpoint, it’s a process. the process just isn’t very satisfying by itself. the notes don’t conjure any feeling or place or thought. that said, bad plus is a hell of a lot more interesting than dream theater
ultimately i get frustrated with any music that has potential but doesn’t actually reach for anything with it. e.g. fourplay. regina spektor similarly infuriates me: all that talent in the service of mostly unlistenable pap
everyone listen to supersilent
Casiopea is a fantastic jazz fusion band from Japan, and their 1979 debut album was absolutely nuts:
The original keyboardist for the band, Minoru Mukaiya, is the president and CEO of Ongakukan, a company which makes train simulators, and the producer of the Train Simulator series of video games. Unsurprisingly, all of those games have bangin’ jazz tunes as well.
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listening to this now, it’s reallllllyyyyy gooooood so far
It is me, apparently the only guy who unironically loves the Gran Turismo soundtracks
I blame my dad playing Spyro Gyra for my entire childhood.
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Been listening to this just about twice a day since hearing it, it’s so super good.
It’s been nearly 4 months and I still listen to this Casiopea album at least once a week.
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had a dream last night and I was looking at a cartoon of dead jazz musicians drawn as teen anime girls
'oh there’s Charlie Parker…there’s Mingus, you can tell by her eyebrows", I thought to myself
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