SUN RA - Omniverse (2022 Reissue) - LP - Purple Vinyl

LABEL: Modern Harmonic

CAT NO: LPMH8221

BARCODE: 090771822123

Tracklisting:

1. The Place of Five Points
2. West End Side of Magic City [Vita No. 5]
3. Dark Lights in a White Forest
4. Omniverse
5. Visitant of the Ninth Ultimate

SUN RA – Omniverse
(2022 Reissue)

LP – Limited Edition Purple Vinyl

Omniverse, recorded in New York in 1979 and released that year on Sun Ra’s Saturn label, has been gathering dust for too long. It’s a fine, overlooked item in the vast Ra catalog. The tracks aren’t so much compositions as they are excursions, with only a few memorable themes or recurring motifs. It’s pure jazz, somewhat “inside” (for Sun Ra), with little of the aggressiveness and confrontation for which the bandleader was known. (Track 5, “Visitant of the Ninth Ultimate,” is an exception.) Omniverse is a very intimate album, offering lots of reflective piano in trio, quartet, and quintet settings, with spare horns. But instead of exhibiting a keyboard showcase, Sun Ra engages in dynamic interplay with the rhythm section. Moreover, the horns are featured largely as soloists; there are few ensemble passages.

Three of the works (tracks 3, 4 and 5) exist as recordings only on this album; there are no documented concert performances of these titles. “West End Side of Magic City” (a reference to the bandleader’s birth town of Birmingham, Alabama) doesn’t reappear in the known repertoire for twelve years—it surfaces at a May 1991 Atlanta concert, and was reprised in August at a New York club date (for which the piece was announced from the stage as “Vita Number 5”). “The Place of Five Points” is known to have been performed at a smattering of gigs between 1985-1988.

The massive and authoritative Campbell/Trent discography, The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra (2nd ed.) lists personnel provided retrospectively by drummer Samarai Celestial, whose account includes two baritone saxophones and trumpet on tracks 4 and 5, as well as Ra overdubbing drums on 5. However, no baritone or trumpet can be heard on either track, although there are baritone and muted trumpet on track 3, and there is a second drummer on track 1.