Sun Ra - All Stars in Berlin (1983)

Tracks:
01 - Announcement Michael Naura
02 - Happy Birthday / Stars That Shine Darkly
03 - Title
04 - Somewhere Else
05 - Early Morning Blues
06 - Poinciana
Line-up:
Sun Ra - keyboardsDon Cherry - trumpet, vocal
Lester Bowie - trumpet
Marshall Allen - alto sax, percussion
John Gilmore - tenor sax, flute
Archie Shepp - tenor sax, vocals
Richard Davis - bass
Clifford Jarvis - drums
Philly Joe Jones - drums
Famoudou Don Moye - percussion

Pharoah Sanders - Deaf Dumb Blind (Summun Bukmun Umyun) (1970)

After Karma was issued and Sanders had established himself -- to himself -- as a musician who had something valuable and of use to say, he was on what this critic considers to be a divinely inspired tear. Deaf Dumb Blind is an example of that inspiration. Beginning with the title cut, a suite of over 21 minutes, Sanders brings in the whole of his obsession with rhythm and R&B. Using African percussion, bylophones, shakers, cowbells, and all manner of percussion, as well as drummer Clifford Jarvis, Sanders brought in Cecil McBee to hold down the bass chair and Lonnie Liston Smith back in on piano, and added a three-piece horn section that included Gary Bartz on alto and Woody Shaw on trumpet in addition to himself. Whew! Here the Latin and African polyrhythms collide and place the horns, as large and varied as they are, in almost a supplementary role. The horns check counterpoint in striated harmony, calling and responding over the wash of bass and drums and drums and drums! It evolves into a percussion orgy before the scary otherworldly multiphonic solos begin. And Shaw and Bartz are worthy foils for Sanders. And no matter how out it gets, those rhythms keep it rooted in the soul. "Let Us Go Into the House of the Lord" is almost 18 minutes in length. It has a long soprano intro, covered in shimmering bells and shakers with a glorious piano fill by Smith, who becomes more prominent, along with some excellent arco work by McBee, until the piece becomes a meditation on lyricism and silence about halfway through. The entire band eventually rejoins for a group ostinato with very little variation, except in timbre and subtle accented color work by Sanders and McBee. It is a stunningly beautiful and contemplative work that showcases how intrinsic melodic phrasing and drones were to Sanders at the time -- and still are today. This piece, and this album, is a joyful noise made in the direction of the divine, and we can feel it through the speakers, down in the place that scares us.

by Thom Jurek in All Music Guide

Styles:
Avant-Garde
Free-Jazz
Progressive Jazz

Tracks:
01 - Summun, Bukmun, Umyun (21:16)
02 - Let Us Go Into The House Of The Lord (17:46)

Line-up:

Pharoah Sanders – soprano saxophone, cow horn, bells, tritone whistle, cowbells, wood flute, thumb piano, percussion
Woody Shaw – trumpet, maracas, yodeling, percussion
Gary Bartz – alto saxophone, bells, cowbell, shakers, percussion
Lonnie Liston Smith – piano, cowbell, thumb piano, percussion
Cecil McBee – bass
Clifford Jarvis – drums
Nathaniel Bettis – bylophone, yodeling, African percussion
Anthony Wiles – conga drum and African percussion

Alice Coltrane - Universal Consciousness (1971)

Recorded between April and June of 1971, Alice Coltrane's Universal Consciousness stands as her classic work. As a testament to the articulation of her spiritual principles, Universal Consciousness stands even above World Galaxy as a recording where the medium of music, both composed and improvised, perfectly united the realms of body (in performance), speech (in the utterance of individual instrumentalists and group interplay), and mind (absolute focus) for the listener to take into her or his own experience. While many regard Universal Consciousness as a "jazz" album, it transcends even free jazz by its reliance on deeply thematic harmonic material and the closely controlled sonic dynamics in its richly hued chromatic palette. The set opens with the title track, where strings engage large washes of Coltrane's harp as Jack DeJohnette's drums careen in a spirit dance around the outer edge of the maelstrom. On first listen, the string section and the harp are in counter-dictum, moving against each other in a modal cascade of sounds, but this soon proves erroneous as Coltrane's harp actually embellishes the timbral glissandos pouring forth. Likewise, Jimmy Garrison's bass seeks to ground the proceedings to DeJohnette's singing rhythms, and finally Coltrane moves the entire engagement to another dimension with her organ. Leroy Jenkins' violin and Garrison's bottom two strings entwine one another in Ornette Coleman's transcription as Coltrane and the other strings offer a middling bridge for exploration. It's breathtaking. On "Battle at Armageddon," the violence depicted is internal; contrapuntal rhythmic impulses whirl around each other as Coltrane's organ and harp go head to head with Rashied Ali's drums. "Oh Allah" rounds out side one with a gorgeously droning, awe-inspiring modal approach to whole-tone music that enfolds itself into the lines of organic polyphony as the strings color each present theme intervalically. DeJohnette's brushwork lisps the edges and Garrison's bass underscores each chord and key change in Coltrane's constant flow of thought.
On side two, "Hare Krishna" is a chant-like piece that is birthed from minor-key ascendancy with a loping string figure transcribed by Coleman from Coltrane's composition on the organ. She lays deep in the cut, offering large shimmering chords that twirl -- eventually -- around high-register ostinatos and pedal work. It's easily the most beautiful and accessible track in the set, in that it sings with a devotion that has at its base the full complement of Coltrane's compositional palette. "Sita Ram" is a piece that echoes "Hare Krishna" in that it employs Garrison and drummer Clifford Jarvis, but replaces the strings with a tamboura player. Everything here moves very slowly, harp and organ drift into and out of one another like breath, and the rhythm section -- informed by the tamboura's drone -- lilts on Coltrane's every line. As the single-fingered lines engage the rhythm section more fully toward the end of the tune, it feels like a soloist improvising over a chanting choir. Finally, the album ends with another duet between Ali and Coltrane. Ali uses wind chimes as well as his trap kit, and what transpires between the two is an organically erected modal architecture, where texture and timbre offer the faces of varying intervals: Dynamic, improvisational logic and tonal exploration become elemental figures in an intimate yet universal conversation that has the search itself and the uncertain nature of arrival, either musically or spiritually, at its root. This ambiguity is the only way a recording like this could possibly end, with spiritual questioning and yearning in such a musically sophisticated and unpretentious way. The answers to those questions can perhaps be found in the heart of the music itself, but more than likely they can, just as they are articulated here, only be found in the recesses of the human heart. This is art of the highest order, conceived by a brilliant mind, poetically presented in exquisite collaboration by divinely inspired musicians and humbly offered as a gift to listeners. It is a true masterpiece. The CD reissue by Universal comes with a handsome Japanese-style five-by-five-inch paper sleeve with liner notes reprinted inside and devastatingly gorgeous 24-bit remastering.

by Thom Jurek in All Music Guide

Styles:
Free-Jazz
Progressive Jazz
World Music

Tracks:
01 - Universal Consciousness (05:06)
02 - Battle at Armageddon (07:20)
03 - Oh Allah (05:01)
04 - Hare Krishna (08:14)
05 - Sita Ram (04:47)
06 - The Ankh of Amen-Ra (06:09)

Line-up:
Alice Coltrane - arranger, harp, organ
Jimmy Garrison - bass
Rashied Ali - drums, percurssion
John Blair - violin
Leroy Jenkins - violin
Julius Brand - violin
Tulsi - tambura
Clifford Jarvis - drums, percurssion
Jack DeJohnette - drums