Browse by Label: ART YARD (UK)

Artist:	SUN RA & HIS OMNIVERSE JET-SET ARKESTRA
Title:	Beyond the Purple Star Zone
Label:	ART YARD (UK)
Format:	LP
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	ARTYARD 005LP

"Beyond The Purple Star Zone is one of two Saturn LPs recorded during a week's residency by Sun Ra at the Detroit Jazz Center in the last week of 1980. Just about everything that the Arkestra played that week was captured on tape -- ending with a marathon series of three concerts on New Year's Eve 1980, when the music extended over nearly eight hours, and included over ninety identifiable compositions. There was scarcely any duplication of compositions throughout this marathon night, even though each concert was played before a different audience, the auditorium cleared between sets. The title track, 'Beyond The Purple Star Zone,' is extracted from the second of these three New Year's Eve concerts. In essence, it's a French horn trio, involving Sun Ra, Vincent Chancey and a percussionist. As well as featuring on this LP as the title track, it was used again by Sun Ra when in 1982 he issued another Saturn LP, Oblique Parallax, to release more material from these December 1980 concerts. On this second outing, 'Beyond The Purple Star Zone' was spliced together with music played on 30 December to form the piece known as 'Journey Stars Beyond.' 'Rocket Number Nine' also comes from the second of the three New Year's Eve concerts, and is a feature for Ra and the Arkestra's vocal dexterity, and in a quintessential Sun Ra touch melds other compositions in with this tune. There's a Sun Ra poem embedded -- 'The Space Age Is Here To Stay,' as well as fragments of a Gospel piece. There's also an early appearance of another Sun Ra composition, 'Face The Music,' which crops up occasionally in 1970s and 1980s concerts, before coming into its own around 1990, when, with a full instrumental arrangement, it was featured frequently. Considering the dozens of hours of surviving concert tape from this Detroit residency, it's significant that none of the recordings yet auditioned contain the material used on this album for 'Immortal Being,' 'Romance on a Satellite' or 'Planetary Search.' It is possible -- but uncertain -- that these are performances from this residency, the sonics are very close to those of the first two pieces from this album. At least one Detroit concert (plus one workshop) remain to be researched. However, the presence of an electric bass player and electric guitarist on 'Romance on a Satellite' suggests that these pieces may have a different origin. All are fine pieces, for the moment they keep their mysteries." -- Chris Trent

Artist:	RAGAB AND THE CAIRO JAZZ BAND, SALAH
Title:	Present Egyptian Jazz: Ramadan In Space Time
Label:	ART YARD (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$21.00
Catalog #:	ARTYARD 006CD

Repressed. "Salah Ragab formed the first jazz big band in Egypt (The Cairo Jazz Band) in 1968, he was also the leader of the Military Music Departments in Heliopolis. Some of the best musicians in Egypt of that time were members of the band such as Zaki Osman (trumpet), Saied Salama (tenor sax), Khamis El -Kholy (piano), Ala Mostafa (piano). On this recording, The Band consists of five saxophones, four trumpets, four trombones, piano, bass, drums and percussion. The opening concert of The Cairo Jazz Band was in Ewart Memorial Hall at The American University on 2/23/1969. Salah Ragab accompanied the great band leader and composer Sun Ra on a tour in Egypt, Greece, France and Spain in 1984. He also studied jazz theories and improvisation with the jazz musician and composer from Kansas City, Osman Kareem, with whom he formed the first Jazz Quintet in Cairo in 1963, recording with the Radio Service of Cairo. He gave a series of educational lectures about jazz history at the German Culture 'Goethe Institute,' and wrote the only jazz book in Arabic, Jazz Music: The Roots and Future. These recordings present Salah Ragab and The Cairo Jazz Band's definitive work, recorded in Heliopolis, Egypt between 1968 and 1973. Western jazz musicians have been fascinated with the world of Islam for many years, for religious, spiritual, musical and sociological reasons. It was therefore inevitable that musicians of the Arabian North African area would play a part in the interaction of these two musical cultures. The compositions correspond to the crossover of musical styles at the time of the recording, 5000 miles away across the Mediterranean and Atlantic in New York with releases on Moodsville by Yusef Lateef and RCA by Ahmud Abdul-Malik. This record represents The Cairo Jazz Band responding to the American jazz scene of the '60s and '70s with influences from Mongo Santamaria to Randy Weston and Sun Ra. These tracks were first presented by The Ministry Of Culture in Cairo as a Prism Music Production and released with an additional disk by the composer Soliman Gamil. This release marks the first time Salah Ragab and The Cairo Jazz Band's definitive works are presented to the West."

Artist:	SUN RA ALL STARS BAND, THE
Title:	Hiroshima/Stars That Shine Darkly
Label:	ART YARD (UK)
Format:	LP
Price:	$23.00
Catalog #:	ARTYARD 2007LP

Beautifully packaged LP-only reissue of these 1983 recordings; "Hiroshima" is a side long solo piece for pipe organ! "I was about seven years old when on August 6, 1945 Hiroshima was the first city in the history of mankind to be struck by an atomic bomb -- dropped by the United States Air Force. In our days the only so-called democratic government which applied this mass-destruction weapon for the first time and would not hesitate to use it again, asks other countries to stop the development of nuclear power. What a miserable Christian hypocrisy. Why did Sun Ra title his only acoustic document performed on a church organ Hiroshima? Despite my young age in 1945 I can very clearly remember the gloomy atmosphere in 'bombed-out' Stuttgart with my family sitting around my uncle's place in Schwaebisch Gmnd during the twilight hour and talking about this unbelievable criminal act against Hiroshima. Beside the depressed mood of the talk I only remember the (surely false) fact, that 'Little Boy', as the United States offendingly called their bomb, was only as small as a tennis-ball. Beside the well-known political call and response ritual, 'Nuclear War,' 'Hiroshima,' has a pipe organ solo by Sun Ra, recorded in a theatre in Atlanta, Georgia. By attentive listening, one can discover some other instruments too. One can hear a triangle, a bird whistle, a slap-stick or castanets, a tambourine ring, cymbals, and most likely, different drums. The record was released in 1985 on one of Sun Ra's Saturn long playing records with the number 11-83. The flip side of this record is titled 'Stars That Shine Darkly...' Recorded live at Montreux, Switzerland during the tour of The Sun Ra All Stars, early November 1983." --Hartmut Geerken

Artist:	SUN RA
Title:	Disco 3000: Complete Milan Concert 1978
Label:	ART YARD (UK)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$31.00
Catalog #:	ARTYARD 001CD

24-bit (mastered from the original tapes, with booklet notes by performer Michael Ray). 6-panel digipack. Recorded at The Teatro Cilak, 1/23/1978, Milan Italy. "In the winter of 1977-1978, philosopher, pianist and bandleader Sun Ra was in Italy. The Italian tour resulted in releases on Sun Ra's own Saturn label, all of which have long been out of print and all but impossible to find. With the re-release of Disco 3000, one of the most celebrated of these elusive Saturn gems is once more available. This release, and its companion Media Dreams, capture a side of Sun Ra's work -- small ensemble, close form, original composition, rather minimal -- that is otherwise under-represented. Depending heavily on Ra's electric and electronic keyboards (including the mysterious Crumar Mainman -- of which even the company has no record) and, more unusually, on his intelligent use of sequencers and rhythm machines, this is an important window on the evolution of Ra's musical thinking, rendered even more transparent by the economy of its means; a quartet comprising only saxophonist John Gilmore, trumpeter Michael Ray and drummer Luqman Ali."

Artist:	SUN RA
Title:	Media Dreams
Label:	ART YARD (UK)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$28.00
Catalog #:	ARTYARD 002CD

"This is the companion to Disco 3000, made on the same classic Italian quartet tour with John Gilmore, Michael Ray (trumpet) and the minimal but perfect Luqman Ali (drums). Ra himself plays piano and electronic keyboards, including the mysterious Crumar Mainman, which Ra describes as 'like a piano, organ, clavichord, cello, violin and brass instruments' and which also, importantly, has a facility for pre-programmed bass lines and electronic percussion, which Ra uses constantly and to great effect in this small ensemble setting and seldom, if ever, elsewhere. The best of this collection (most of CD1) is luminous: very electronic, often rhythmical and melodic, always economical and making every sound count. These tracks are like no other jazz ensemble and, although recognizable as Ra -- who else could think of, and then get away with this -- unlike any other Ra ensemble, either. Ra makes the machines do amazing, visionary things while the band exercises restraint, remaining always in focus. In between, there are piano, saxophone, trumpet and drum vignettes, fresh and perfectly judged; this real was a fine band. This places the original vinyl release (and related releases, Sound Mirror and Disco 3000) back into the context of the concerts from which they were drawn. An important addition to the Sun Ra canon, since it is a rare document of an unusual Ra project that produced three classic late '70s LPs. Beautifully packaged and well annotated."

Artist:	SUN RA & HIS INTERGALACTIC MYTH SCIENCE SOLAR ARKESTRA
Title:	Sleeping Beauty
Label:	ART YARD (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	ARTYARD 003CD

"Originally released on Saturn Records in 1979, both Sleeping Beauty and On Jupiter are studio recordings by the large Ra ensemble (including electric guitar and electric bass) and, for the most part, feature the first recordings of the titles included on them (though most were played live a few months earlier). These two releases belong together, since they were recorded and released in close proximity and are both long, groove-based, pieces that range from proto-disco to relaxed groove-driven pieces in which electric piano, guitar and bass function as a ground on which a parade of events drift in and out; Sleeping Beauty is a chaotic, swirling masterpiece with lots of effects added to the instruments and an interesting mix."

Artist:	SUN RA & HIS INTERGALACTIC MYTH SCIENCE SOLAR ARKESTRA
Title:	On Jupiter
Label:	ART YARD (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	ARTYARD 004CD

Originally issued as El Saturn 101679, recorded on 10/16/79, never reissued before in any form (before Artyard's prior LP edition in 2005). "On Jupiter uses more than the usual amount of post recording processing and mixing, nudging up to the jazz-rock/disco music of its time, but not getting too close. These are still eccentric, expanded, lurching musical beasts. And it's nice to hear the oboe and bassoon -- so often lost on the live concert mixes -- so prominent here. The playing is great, as ever. This release along with Sleeping Beauty are two of the more accessible Ra releases and mark a rare experiment in quasi popularity by the band. They are both also, at present, collectors' items."

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