It is assumed at this point that the reader has carefully listened to last week's posting of Discipline 27-II and has absorbed all the cosmic teachings and profound universal truths revealed in that song. Therefore, it's further assumed that the reader is now ready for the next lesson and can now delve one level deeper into the astro-mystery by experiencing this live version of the composition, for some reason here called I Roam the Cosmos.
I Roam the Cosmos, aka D27-II, should not be confused with We Roam the Cosmos, an entirely different Sun Ra composition. Both were rarely performed live - the massive, 850-page Campbell-Trent Sun Ra discography contains only two references to I Roam - a Voice of America mono tape recording from a 1973 performance at Carnegie Hall and an audience recording of a 1974 performance at Hunter College.
This recently released live version was recorded in June or July of 1972 with a pair of microphones on opposite sides of the stage. It's far from a high-fidelity recording, but considering the simple set-up, it's still quite good, the stereo separation is remarkable, and the raw cosmic soul of the Sun Ra-June Tyson duet is undeniable.
The performance took place at Slugs' Saloon, a Lower East Side jazz club on East 3rd Street. The area was known as Alphabet City, i.e, the neighborhood around Avenues A, B, C, and D, the only streets in Manhattan with single-letter names. Despite the grittiness of the neighborhood, Slugs' had a reputation as a musician's bar, a place where the cutting edge of the avant garde could regularly be heard, and prominent jazz musicians, including Sonny Rollins, Albert Ayler, and Ornette Coleman, among many others, have all played there. Salvador Dali once dropped in for a visit. From March 1966 through late 1967, Sun Ra and His Astro-Infinity Arkestra played regular Monday night gigs there and continued to play the venue irregularly thereafter. It's been said that Sun Ra did not play short sets, and performances reportedly started at 9:00 and would last until 4:00 a.m.
Although now gentrified and quite safe, the Slugs' location first hosted a Ukrainian restaurant and later a bar that served as a meeting point for drug dealers. It opened as Slugs' Saloon in 1964, "slugs" being a reference to the "terrestrial three-brained beings" mentioned in the book Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson by George Gurdjieff. Due to New York City regulations, the word "saloon" had to be dropped from the name and the venue was later called "Slugs' in the Far East," due to its easterly location in the East Village, but everyone still knew it as "Slugs' Saloon." Rossy's Bakery, a cake shop and cafe, is now operating at the Slugs' location.
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| Rossy's Bakery at 243 E. 3rd St. in Manhattan, former site of Slugs' Saloon (Google street view) |
Despite the grittiness of the neighborhood, a vibrant scene had developed at Slugs' out-of-the-way location. But those were tough, crime-filled years in New York City and Slugs' was a rough joint in a bad neighborhood: on February 19, 1972, the great jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan was shot dead at the bar by his common-law wife and booking manager, Helen More. The demise of the neighborhood and the notoriety of the Morgan incident eventually caused the club to be shut down in late 1972.
The band here is essentially the same as on last week's studio version of D27-II. I Roam the Cosmos starts out with a brief solo statement from Danny Davis on alto sax, followed by the incomparable June Tyson singing the newly composed Astro Black over the D27-II groove. Soon after, Ra and Tyson engage in call-and-response declamations as the Arkestra sustains the D27-II rhythm for close to an hour, punctuated by occasional choruses of horns. Ra intones cosmic philosophy, conjures enlightenment, offers myths, and delivers dire forecasts, with Tyson echoing and dramatizing each invocation. Alternately mystic and braggadocious, and switching identities while staying in the first person, Ra brings up race, music, outer space, and doing the impossible (“Give up your death for me!” he demands at one point), with Tyson echoing virtually every word. Meanwhile, the Arkestra maintains the two-chord vamp with Kwame Hadi and Akh Tal Ebah providing running commentary on trumpet and flugelhorn, respectively.
It's notable that Sun Ra's famous quote, "At first there was nothing and then nothing turned itself inside out and became something," is not invoked here, although it is heard on the 1973 Concert for the Comet Kohoutek version of D27-II, called Outer Space E.M. (Emergency).
Another 1972 Sun Ra album, Universe in Blue, also contains performances recorded at Slugs', and in 2008 the label Transparency released a six-CD set, Live At Slugs' Saloon, of material separate from that on Universe. Although the latter has several different versions of D27-II, none are titled I Roam the Cosmos although, interestingly, one track is titled At First There Was Nothing. But the Live At Slug's Saloon recordings are reportedly on mono tape (we haven't heard them, but they are of notoriously low quality) while this recording is in stereo, and none of the tracks listed on Live At Slugs' appear to be 51 minutes long; it would take up an entire CD if it were, and each disc has four to seven cuts.
We'll admit it's a bit long and can get a little tedious at times, but it's a faithful document of a live performance of Discipline 27-II and Ra’s stream-of-consciousness preaching is simultaneously terrifying and laugh-out-loud funny. And it was recorded late one night at the very same bar where Lee Morgan had just been shot to death mere months earlier.
The band here is essentially the same as on last week's studio version of D27-II. I Roam the Cosmos starts out with a brief solo statement from Danny Davis on alto sax, followed by the incomparable June Tyson singing the newly composed Astro Black over the D27-II groove. Soon after, Ra and Tyson engage in call-and-response declamations as the Arkestra sustains the D27-II rhythm for close to an hour, punctuated by occasional choruses of horns. Ra intones cosmic philosophy, conjures enlightenment, offers myths, and delivers dire forecasts, with Tyson echoing and dramatizing each invocation. Alternately mystic and braggadocious, and switching identities while staying in the first person, Ra brings up race, music, outer space, and doing the impossible (“Give up your death for me!” he demands at one point), with Tyson echoing virtually every word. Meanwhile, the Arkestra maintains the two-chord vamp with Kwame Hadi and Akh Tal Ebah providing running commentary on trumpet and flugelhorn, respectively.
It's notable that Sun Ra's famous quote, "At first there was nothing and then nothing turned itself inside out and became something," is not invoked here, although it is heard on the 1973 Concert for the Comet Kohoutek version of D27-II, called Outer Space E.M. (Emergency).
Another 1972 Sun Ra album, Universe in Blue, also contains performances recorded at Slugs', and in 2008 the label Transparency released a six-CD set, Live At Slugs' Saloon, of material separate from that on Universe. Although the latter has several different versions of D27-II, none are titled I Roam the Cosmos although, interestingly, one track is titled At First There Was Nothing. But the Live At Slug's Saloon recordings are reportedly on mono tape (we haven't heard them, but they are of notoriously low quality) while this recording is in stereo, and none of the tracks listed on Live At Slugs' appear to be 51 minutes long; it would take up an entire CD if it were, and each disc has four to seven cuts.
We'll admit it's a bit long and can get a little tedious at times, but it's a faithful document of a live performance of Discipline 27-II and Ra’s stream-of-consciousness preaching is simultaneously terrifying and laugh-out-loud funny. And it was recorded late one night at the very same bar where Lee Morgan had just been shot to death mere months earlier.
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