SUN RA — Pathways to Unknown Worlds (review)

SUN RA — Pathways to Unknown Worlds album cover Album · 1975 · Avant-Garde Jazz Buy this album from MMA partners
4.5/5 ·
js
Sun Ra certainly put out a lot of records over the years, so it only stands to reason that some are better than others. To the casual listener “Pathways to Unknown Worlds” may sound like typical Sun Ra fare, but the serious Ra fan will recognize its uniqueness and know that it stands out as one of his very best. Subtlety and restraint are the keys here. Very little of this music sounds composed, it is a controlled free blowing session, but the sensitivity and creativity that the musicians bring to this recording make it stand out above the usual 70s indulgent free blow-out.

Side one opens with a long improvised narrative from the mute trumpet while the others provide scattered background comments that sound like the local avant-garde chamber ensemble on Quaaludes. Everyone stays relaxed as the solo passes to another trumpeter and the sounds behind him lazily shift and stumble in ways that are unique to Ra and his band. After some quiet bass interludes Ra brings on the exotic keyboard sounds for some clumsy insistent figures.

Side two’s “Extension Out” opens with a more typical screeching saxophone attack that most would associate with the avant-garde jazz scene and continues with layers of percussion that rise and fall amidst ensemble horn rumblings and atonal lounge chords from one of Ra’s mystery keyboards. Album closer “Cosmo-Media” belongs to Ra and his keyboards, possibly a Yamaha organ and an analog synthesizer run through distortion and other devices. Its hard to describe the music Ra pulls from his electronics, but this is one of the finest examples of his unique approach to electronic keyboard playing that you will find as he switches from zombie lounge figures, to a plague of furious insects and finally to harsh chords stumbling from a scratchy record that is skipping badly.

Highly recommended to fans of Sun Ra. This one stands out, you may not get a lot of Ra’s composition skills or band arrangements on this one, but you do get some of his most clever group improv on vinyl.
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