A New One From Rob Mazurek's Exploding Star Orchestra

I have little doubt that Chicago is resurging as an important center for the new improvised music (known as jazz or simply improvisation). It never disappeared from the world scene, of course, but there is so much great new jazz coming out of there lately that there is a special feeling I get after listening to what's been forthcoming and when I weigh it mentally-musically as a whole.

One of those wonderful things that has emerged is cornetist-composer-bandleader Rob Mazurek and his avant big band, Exploding Star Orchestra. Their new CD/LP Stars Have Shapes (Delmark 595) illustrates all that's good in Chicagoland. It's a Chicago all-star lineup--14 stellar improvisers in Rob, Nicole Mitchell, Jeb Bishop, Jason Stein, Greg Ward, Jason Adasiewicz, Mike Reed, and so on.

The compositions have flow and density. And Maestro Mazurek makes use of electronics at certain points to alter the sounds and add to the color of the performance. The band improvises collectively in a beautiful way, the compositions give contrast between drone, avant smear, sound poetry and full-blast-off power in ways that further distinguish this effort.

Stars Have Shapes is a fruitful meeting of Chicago titans, and Mazurek's compositional and conceptual direction puts them in a very attractive and important place in the new jazz today. Yes, it's that good, I think.

Territory Band and "New Horse for the White House"

Territory Band is/was an 11-piece avant jazz collective with an all-star line up of musicians from Chicago and Europe. New Horse for the White House (Okka 2006) is a generous 3-CD set of the band at a peak period, and it's at a great price. Two of the disks were recorded in the studio, one was recorded live, all in 2005.

Personnel highlights include Ken Vandermark and Dave Rempis on reeds, Johannes Bauer, trombone, Kent Kessler, bass, and Paul Lytton and Paal Nilssen-Love on percussion.

Ken Vandermark wrote the compositions and in many ways serves as the guiding light. The pieces combine idiomatic written sections and collective improvisations spiked by an out-front soloist or two when it seems right.

It's a marvelously varied sound they get. There is tightness, looseness and a sense of structure and direction that comes out of a clear vision and talented players logging in a good deal of playing time/rehearsal. At least that's how it sounds.

There is so much good music here that demands your attention. It may make a handsome adornment to your shelves but it was meant to be heard. It is worth the effort. This is another important disk from one of the seminal cats to come out of Chicagoland.

Sun Ra Arkestra Live at the Paradox

When I heard that the Sun Ra Arkestra was under the direction of his long-time altoist Marshall Allen I wasn't sure how that would work out on the ground. Not that Mr. Allen isn't a totally capable musician and leader in his own right. He is. Bands that continue on without their founder can flounder. They can thrive. One never knows.

The Arkestra under Allen was captured Live at the Paradox a while ago and that performance is the focus of a recent CD (In and Out 77098-2) that forms the subject of this review.

I'm happy to say that the Arkestra (based on this recording) is alive and well. It retains the elements that made the Sun Ra unit so unique and exciting: the collective improvisations, the quirky instrumentals, the free soloing, the creaky standards done with Ra panache, the retro big band charts lurchingly performed with Ra-ist zest, the space songs and chants. All that remains in the new reincarnation of the band. But it's not Ra by rote. There's a refreshed focus. They don't quite sound the same much of the time--but that isn't so bad. In fact it's good.

If you are looking for the original go back to those recordings. If you want the 2010 version of Ra largess this is a very good way to get it. There are some long-time members of the fold: of course Marshall, Davis, Thompson, but there are also new members. The mix of old and new comes out well in the sound of the band, some of the Ra standards, and a series of new pieces composed by Allen.

It all works and brings you the joyous outness that the band always managed to create. But it's no recreate-the-old-material and how can it be as good sort of thing. It's a new take on the band. So it's a new band. And it's good. And that's good.

Sun Ra Revisited, 1965

Sun Ra's Nothing Is, recorded live on a tour of NY State Colleges in 1965, was surely one of his best early releases. The band live, which we were to learn increasingly, was the band at its best. And here they were with all the elements in place. The original LP had 40 minutes give-or-take of the concert material and it was an instant classic, though the world at large took some time before it came to embrace the music and join the already convinced.

Now we have a release of the complete date, more than two-hours worth of Ra and the band in excellent form. College Tour Volume One: The Complete Nothing Is. . . (ESP 4060) is one of those revelatory issues that comes along infrequently. The band stretches out and soars. There are many nice surprises: a longish version of "The Satellites are Spinning," a bop-to-swing "Velvet," a long version of "Second Stop is Jupiter," and more. Too much to note here.

What's especially nice is the chance to get Sun Ra's acoustic piano work in some depth. It's worth listening to in isolation, because it gives you in a rather early stage the combination of styles he and the band were synthesizing so effectively. And the band sounds great. Clifford Jarvis and Ronnie Boykins get several chances to act as a hard-bop rhythm section and they do it with fire. There are plenty of all-out horn assaults that the band was so good at putting across, and of course there are some more of the chants, some in very different versions.

It's a great document for showing how the Sun Ra organization at that very moment were incredibly innovative (and of course remained so). When you think of out big bands, you realize they were pretty much IT back then. You can hear on this complete concert how Sun Ra was carving out his group sound with deliberation and total originality. You can hear it all on this set. He had gotten it together totally by 1965.

It's an event no avant aficionado should miss. Sun Ra devotees will especially be happy. I was. I am.

Volume Two of Sun Ra's Heliocentric Worlds

The second volume of The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra (ESP) takes off where volume one ended. This is more of the essential exploratory Ra with its percussive sound universes, improvisational collages of horns, individual solos against an orchestral backdrop, and various freely articulated pairings, such as electronic keyboard and bowed bass or a horn or two and percussion.

The key members John Gilmore, Marshall Allen (who currently directs the revived Arkestra), Pat Patrick and Ronnie Boykins all make their presence felt. What strikes me of these mid-'60s sides is that there were really at least two Sun Ra Arkestra identities in those early days. One was especially geared toward the live shows, the sort of campy cosmic astro-men from another planet bag and the visual carnival that went along with that. Chants, songs, and rocket thrust Ra keyboard antics were a large part of the public face of the band. And they did that quite well, of course. Then there was the second side of the Arkestra, something they did for themselves and, while inviting audiences to appreciate it, did not build their live identity around it. It was frankly experimental free jazz from the big band. And it was in the studio that Sun Ra could concentrate more of his efforts on these kinds of pieces, without the need to draw a particular audience into the picture.

Heliocentric Worlds concentrates on that latter side of the band. As mentioned in my review of volume one (see below) the band under Ra's direction was quite in advance of what any larger bands even approached in those days. Volume two is simply another installment of that music. While volume one may be the stronger of the two, both volumes should be heard together to give you a full picture of the intended effect.

Like the first volume, this one is now available in a limited collectors' audiophile vinyl edition. See the ESP website for details.