Sun Ra and His Intergalatic Cosmo Arkestra - Live At Montreux (USA 1976)

An Uncle Roddus Album Review

I was introduced to to the music of Sun Ra many moons ago via a radio show solely dedicated to his music on our local student radio station.( The same way I was introduced to Frank Zappa). From listening to this show, I was intrigued enough to investigate further into the mysterious world of Ra. I raided the local public library and found they had a small collection of Ra on vinyl and one of those records was this live recording, which I duly borrowed and took home to annoy my flatmates with.

For many years, the thunderous and chaotic free jazz type piano solos from this album stuck in my mind, but I was unable to find a copy for purchase as it was out of print and hadn't yet been re-released on CD and second hand copy's seemed to be non existent here. A few years back, I did some online searching to see if I could find a digital copy to download until I could find a CD copy. Again I turned up blank. I requested it over at Rare Mp3 blog and fortunately the intrepid MP3 sleuth,  Chuntao, found me a copy, which she posted on her blog for all to enjoy.

Unknown to me at the time, Inner City Records had re-issued it on CD(I believe for the first time) in 2008 and a CD copy of this album has finally arrived in my mail box from Amazon in the very recent past.

Normally I don't go for much in the Avant-garde/Free Jazz scene, although it permeates most modern jazz in small amounts. I find it frustrating and quite grating and annoying to listen to, but there are a few exceptions and for some strange reason John Zorn and Sun Ra are two composers of this type of music that I do enjoy.

Live At Montreux is an excellent, colossal rollercoaseter of a live recording of Sun Ra and his big band Arkestra blasting out their brand of warped jazz for a very appreciative audience. The actual music is not as free sounding as it sounds on these discs as, like Zorn, Ra directs the musicians in their playing  and the whole thing is tightly controlled.

Wild sounding, chaotic Archestra ensemble playing is interspersed with manic trumpet and sax solos and topped off with some awesome piano excursions from Ra himself, not to mention some of the almost industrial sounding organ and Moog experiments. Not a lightweight listening experience and not a lot of melody here, just a large group of musicians really letting loose within the context Sun Ra allows them. Rating 4/5