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Writer's pictureThom Holmes

Sun Ra and Stockhausen—An Imaginary Encounter in Electronic Music

My blog for the Bob Moog Foundation.

Original music by Thom Holmes can be found in iTunes and on Bandcamp.


In this episode, I’m going to indulge in an imaginary idea that Karlheinz Stockhausen and Sun Ra influenced one another. Stockhausen, the pioneering German experimenter with electronic music. Sun Ra, the pioneering figure in American avant-garde jazz. Although these two artists were born about 14 years apart, by 1969 they were each at the peak of their creative powers. I’m imagining that they could have experienced each other’s work around this time and, like the Beatles being inspired to make Sgt. Pepper’s by the Beach Boys Pet Sounds, and the Rolling Stones being inspired to make Their Satanic Majesties Request by the Beatles, be inspired to up the game in their own music. There is no real evidence or documentation for this relationship, as far as I know. But I like to think that it could have happened.


More importantly, to demonstrate what I mean, I will feature recordings from 1969 of both Stockhausen and Sun Ra. In that year, Stockhausen was creating some of his most experimental electronic music and had taken a turn toward what he called “intuitive” or “music produced primarily from the intuition rather than the intellect of the performer.” Sun Ra, always an experimenter with electronic instruments, gained access to one of the early Moog Modular Synthesizers that same year and used it to record some live jazz with his own brand of spontaneous live playing, with and without his ensemble.

 

The first work is by Stockhausen and is one composition from a collective of related works called, Aus den sieben Tagen (From the Seven Days). This is a collection of 15 text compositions by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in May 1968. Being text compositions, the score only consisted of instructions for the performers—no sounds were specified, only the parameters around which the sounds would be produced. Furthermore, one needed to achieve a state of “non-thinking” as Stockhausen put it, before attempting to make a sound. The instructions for the work heard in this podcast began with the phrase, “Play a vibration in the rhythm of your smallest particles.” And so forth. Was this kind of "Intuitive music,” just another name for improvisation? What did he mean when he said that playing by intuition was a way of avoiding the intellect of the performer? Was this his version of composing by using chance operations as Cage was known for? Cage himself did not think so and he wrote to me once that he thought that these works were just another way for Stockhausen to exercise control over his musicians and their output. Stockhausen always had rules to follow and managed the musical output of his ensembles as an authoritarian would, editing, mixing, and processing the live output in real time. This was all part of his performance practice. Regardless, the outcome always seemed spontaneous and unguided, which was a beautiful thing in a jazz sense. Which is why I’ve always thought this work was closer to a jazz model of making music than the kind of canned tape composition that preceded it.

 

Sun Ra was from an entirely different world than Stockhausen. Some might say an entirely different planet. What we do know is that he was a grass roots avant-garde jazz artist without the institutional support, and riches, that someone like Stockhausen garnered in the world of academia. By the early Sixties had augmented his sound with a variety of electronic keyboards including the electric piano, electric Celeste, Hammond organ, and the Clavioline, a specialized organ with vacuum tube oscillators and frequency modifiers designed primarily for novelty effects In the fall of 1969, eight months before the commercial introduction of the Minimoog, Sun Ra became familiar with Robert Moog’s studio model modular synthesizer. He connected with Gershon Kingsley, already an accomplished synthesist, and rented Kingsley’s Moog Modular studio in New York. The Moog programming and recordings were supervised by Kingsley, who told me only a few years ago about his Sun Ra experience. He said that “Each of his musicians came in separately. Yes, I met him and I set up the Moog Modular for him. I never did anything creative with him—he had his own ideas.” The Sun Ra sessions took place in November 1969. This dispels the idea that Sun Ra’s first Moog recordings were done on a prototype Minimoog since that instrument wasn’t available in 1969.


Now I have to step back for a moment in my own research on Sun Ra. I hadn’t known about the Kingsley connection nor the recordings he and Sun Ra made together. That bit of research is credited to my friend Brian Kehew who later wrote the wonderful liner notes for the re-release of My Brother the Wind, from which the two recordings in this episode come. What Brian discovered was that Kingsley set aside a part of his own studio in New York for Sun Ra and his band. Kingsley set up two Moog Modulars for the sessions, giving Sun Ra one keyboard to play with each hand (remember that the Moog at this stage was monophonic). And that’s the part that had always confused me. I knew about the Minimoog connection which came in 1970. But on some of these recordings I couldn’t understand why there sounded like there were two Moogs being played, and the material was clearly recorded live with no overdubs. The answer was, the recordings I was hearing were recorded at the Kingsley studio, played by two hands at once with the bonus of lots of dial turning as well. That which sounded like a Moog Modular indeed turned out to be just that. Thank you, Brian Kehew.


The Kingsley setup with two Moog Modulars would account for the credit found on the original albums, “SUN RA: two moog synthesizers.” Michael D. Anderson, longtime Sun Ra associate and executive director of the Sun Ra Music Archive, confirms that during this period, Sun Ra did not use multi-track recording, so any hint of overdubbing was usually the result of adding other keyboard sounds in real-time, which Kingsley’s setup allowed.

It wasn’t until later in June or July of 1970 that Sun Ra and the Arkestra visited the Moog factory in Trumansburg, New York. After a tour of the Moog testing facilities, Sun Ra left with a Minimoog prototype in tow, which Bob Moog gladly lent him. Ra immediately added the instrument to his repertoire of keyboards and featured the Minimoog prominently on many of his recordings of the early 1970s. Sun Ra imagined immediate possibilities for the new instrument in jazz.


For the second track played in this podcast is “Space Probe,” a delightful look over the shoulder of Sun Ra as he experimented with the Moog Modular.  Examples abound where Sun Ra or Kingsley appear to be fine-tuning dials and other controls independently of the keyboard. The passage from 4:55 to 5:18 clearly sounds like notes played by hand on the keyboard; the modulations from 6:10 to 8:08 were Sun Ra/Kingsley at the controls without using the keyboard; and this was followed by combined playing on the keyboard with dial switching. Many of the sounds were mechanical and robotic, the kind of repetition made easy by a modular synth, but nonetheless new to the ears of the jazz musician. The scales seemed odd, almost microtonal, without a real center.


The third track is Sun Ra and John Gilmore’s “The Code Of Interdependence,” Gilmore being his tenor sax player and composer bandmate. Here you can hear the Arkestra in the Kingsley studio, playing along with Sun Ra on the Moog, blending in percussions sounds, oboes, and tenor sax passages to form a solid jazz number. This was late 1969. Amazing.

Two little things I’d like to add. My archive also contains an original release of “Space Probe” and “The Code Of Interdependence,” which is from the mid 1970s. Thie album and plain white sleeve are each autographed by one John Gilmore and maybe Sun Ra, which is less legible. I used the Kehew release for this episode because, well, I wanted to acknowledge his great work on Sun Ra and the sound of the re-issue is really vibrant and bright.


The final thing is about my copy of the Stockhausen boxed set of Aus Den Sieben Tagen. The entire set is hand-stamped all over with the name Astro Infinity Research Arkestra. And alongside the notes for the work heard in this podcast, Es, are scribbled the words, “This is totally insane_.” I will let you speculate, dear listener, on who may have been the original owner of this LP.


Episode 136

Sun Ra and Stockhausen—An Imaginary Encounter in Electronic Music

Playlist

Time

Track Time

Start

Introduction –Thom Holmes

14:28

00:00

Karlheinz Stockhausen,  “Es (It)” (1969) from Aus Den Sieben Tagen (from the Seven Days) (1973 Deutsche Grammophon). Composed by, electronics (Filters, Potentiometers), spoken voice, technician (Sound Direction), liner notes, Karlheinz Stockhausen; Elektronium, Harald Bojé; Piano, Aloys Kontarsky; Drums, Percussion (Tam-tam, Flexatone, Guero, Bamboo Flute, Jew's Harp, Rolf Gehlhaar; Drums, Percussion (Tam-tam, Flexatone, Guero, Jew's Harp, Alfred Alings; Viola, Johannes G. Fritsch. The Elektronium was an electronic instrument in the form of an accordion, invented by Hohner in 1952. From the cycle of compositions entitled Aus den Sieben Tagen. Es (10th May 1968). This is the complete cycle for the work consisting of 7 albums recorded at the Georg-Moller-Haus (Loge) in Darmstadt, from the 26th to 31st August 1969. This is different than the earlier recordings from Cologne that were released separately. Comes in a sturdy box together with a tri-lingual 20-page booklet. Each record is packed in its own cover.

23:04

14:30

Sun-Ra and his Astro Infinity Arkestra, “Space Probe” (1969) from My Brother The Wind Vol. 1 (2017 Cosmic Myth Records). Moog Modular Synthesizer solo, two keyboards, Sun Ra; Moog programming and mixing, Gershon Kingsley.” Recorded at Gershon Kingsley’s New York studio before Sun Ra had acquired a prototype Minimoog from Bob Moog the following year.

17:45

37:30

Sun-Ra and his Astro Infinity Arkestra, “The Code Of Interdependence” (1969) from My Brother The Wind Vol. 1 (2017 Cosmic Myth Records). Moog Modular Synthesizer solo, two keyboards, Sun Ra; Moog programming and mixing, Gershon Kingsley; Drums, Danny Davis, John Gilmore; Oboe, Marshall Allen; Tenor Saxophone, John Gilmore. Recorded at Gershon Kingsley’s New York studio before Sun Ra had acquired a prototype Minimoog from Bob Moog the following year.

16:50

55:16

 

Opening background music: Sun Ra and his Solar Myth Arkestra, “Seen Three Took Four” from The Solar-Myth Approach Vol. 1 (1970 Actuel). Piano, Minimoog, Electric Organ, Clavinet, Sun Ra; Tenor Saxophone, Percussion, John Gilmore; among a huge host of others.


Introduction to the podcast voiced by Anne Benkovitz.


Additional opening, closing, and other incidental music by Thom Holmes.

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Electronic and Experimental Music

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