Red Hot & Ra
Red Hot Organization
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In 1990, the Red Hot Organization launched with an album of Cole Porter songs, interpreted by musical artists of the time. The aim of the project (other than the musical one) was to raise awareness and funds for the HIV/Aids crisis. Now, some 34 years and 23 albums later, the newest curator of the series is the GRAMMY-winning multi-instrumentalist and all-around musical maestro Meshell Ndegeocello.
Here the focus (as it has been for a previous compilation) is your favorite jazz musician’s favorite jazz musician, Sun Ra. Born in Birmingham, Alabama in May 1914, the jazz musician embraced almost every musical twist and turn from ragtime to fusion. Along the way, he composed at an astonishing rate, pioneered the early use of synthesizers and helped establish Afrofuturism in a musical sense.
Meshell Ndegeocello began to listen to Sun Ra in a different way during that time when the earth seemed to wobble on its axis with anxiety during the pandemic in 2020. A timely reissue of the biography of the man born Herman Blount that year led to Ndegeocello understanding Ra’s work (as she, herself puts it) on a deeper, “molecular” level and emerging changed by the experience.
Here Ndegeocello is less of a singer and more of an orchestrator and producer, which comes as no surprise after hearing the generosity of spirit with which she created her GRAMMY-winning album The Omnichord Real Book (2023) alongside an array of musicians at various stages of their careers. Some of those same musicians create this fitting tribute to Sun Ra too. Deantoni Parks and Justin and Jade Hicks provided part of the backbone of Omnichord and are present here again alongside burning new talents like 15-year-old Kojo Roney and redoubtable legends like the nearly 100-year-old Marshall Allen, who has led Ra’s Arkestra since 1995.
Marshalled by Ndegeocello, they weave together hints of existing Sun Ra ideas, add original compositions and conjure up nine pieces indelibly marked by musical excellence and Sun Ra’s restless urge for freedom from this world’s ills and its limited imagination. The most straightforward of which is “Bedlam Blues,” which places Justin Hicks’ soulful voice and luxuriant Moog playing to the fore. When he sings “most of us are overwhelmed and overworked,” it’s really difficult not to feel that like a punch to the guts.
Listen to the Album:
On “#9 Venus The Living Myth,” the band fuse together a saxophone riff and vocal chants from two different Sun Ra pieces (hence the title). The furious dueling saxophones of Marshall Allen and Immanuel Wilkins give way to soft ‘80s style keys and a gradual comedown that one would expect after interstellar voyages. By and large though, trying to describe songs here is a bit like trying to nail jelly (Jell-o to my US friends) to a wall, such is the way in which “songs” twist, turn and obfuscate.
For example, on “Reproductive Manatees – Sunny Said Up!”, what starts with strident, unsettling piano then becomes something else entirely. The piano becomes less percussive and lighter and the mood changes instantly.
“LQ1TY – 29 Years” is a case in point too. The same unsettling atmosphere is established, this time courtesy of the frayed nerves of sci-fi keys, before it threatens to break into a groove at various points.
Elsewhere, Pink Siifu’s drawl is a perfect accompaniment to the languorous saxophone moan and woozy violin on “El-Soul The Companion, Traveler” and Rashaan Carter’s upright bass pops effervescently on “Yet Differently Not.”
If you’re after an easy ride, this album is not it. Here is a journey filled with magic and mystery in equal measure. The songs contort and voyage to unexpected places at the drop of a hat, changing moods and destinations as they go. As a tribute to the genius of Sun Ra, it succeeds greatly in following but not retracing his astral footsteps.
Notable Tracks: “#9 Venus The Living Myth” | “Bedlam Blues” | “El-Soul The Companion, Traveler”
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