Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow
Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow | ||||
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Studio album by Sun Ra and his Solar Arkestra | ||||
Released | 1965 [1] | |||
Recorded | 1961–1962, New York | |||
Genre | Jazz | |||
Length | 34:06 | |||
Label | Saturn Evidence | |||
Producer | Alton Abraham | |||
Sun Ra and his Solar Arkestra chronology | ||||
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Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
CD AllMusic | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow is an album by the American jazz musician Sun Ra and his Solar Arkestra. Often considered the first of Ra's 'outside' recordings,[4] the album was the first to make extensive use of a discovery by the Arkestra's drummer and engineer Tommy Hunter:
'Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow.... contained "Cluster of Galaxies" and "Solar Drums", two rhythm section exercises with the sound treated with such strange reverberations that they threatened to obliterate the instruments' identity and turn the music into low-budget musique concrète. While testing the tape recorder when the musicians were tuning up one day, Hunter had discovered that if he recorded with the earphones on, he could run a cable from the output jack back into the input on the recorder and produce massive reverberation:
"I wasn't sure what Sun Ra would think of it... I thought he might be mad - but he loved it. It blew his mind! By working the volume of the output on the playback I could control the effect, make it fast or slow, drop it out, or whatever." [Tommy Hunter]
'By the 1950s commercial recording companies had developed a classical style of recording which assured that the recording process itself would be invisible... but Sun Ra began to regularly violate this convention on the Saturn releases by recording live at strange sites, by using feedback, distortion, high delay or reverb, unusual microphone placement, abrupt fades or edits, and any number of other effects or noises which called attention to the recording process. On some recordings you could hear a phone ringing, or someone walking near the microphone. It was a rough style of production, an antistyle, a self-reflexive approach which anticipates both free jazz recording conventions and punk production to come.' John F Szwed [5]
The sleeve was designed by Sun Ra. When re-issued on compact disc by Evidence in 1992, the album was joined with the contemporaneous Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy.
Track listing
12-inch vinyl
All songs by Sun Ra
Side A:
- "Cluster of Galaxies" - (2.22)
- "Ankh" - (6.08)
- "Solar Drums" - (2.27)
- "The Outer Heavens" - (4.47)
Side B:
- "Infinity of the Universe" - (7.08)
- "Lights on a Satellite" - (3.08)
- "Kosmos in Blue" - (8.06)
Musicians
- Sun Ra - Piano, Sun Harp, Gong, Percussion
- Manny Smith - Trumpet
- Clifford Thornton - Trumpet on Infinity of the Universe
- Ali Hassan - Trombone
- Pat Patrick - Baritone Sax, Percussion, Clarinet
- John Gilmore - Tenor Sax, Bass Clarinet, Percussion
- Marshall Allen - Alto Sax, Bells, Percussion
- Ronnie Boykins - Bass
- John Ore - Second Bass on Kosmos in Blue
- C. Scoby Stroman - Drums, Percussion
- Clifford Jarvis - Drums on Infinity of the Universe
- Tommy Hunter - Drums, Percussion on Cluster of Galaxies, Lights on a Satellite and Kosmos in Blue
[1]
Recorded entirely at the Choreographer's Workshop, New York (the Arkestra's rehearsal space) in 1962, except "Lights on a Satellite" and "Kosmos in Blue", recorded in the same location in either November or December 1961.[1]
Notes
- ^ a b c Campbell, Robert L. "Sun Ra Discography". University of Alabama at Birmingham. Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow. Archived from the original on 7 August 2011. Retrieved 27 September 2015.
- ^ CD AllMusic review
- ^ Larkin, Colin (2006). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Vol. 7. MUZE. p. 843.
- ^ Sean Westergaard, All Music Guide
- ^ John F Szwed, Space Is The Place (book), Mojo, 2000, p187-188, including a quote from Tommy Hunter
- v
- t
- e
Arkestra members
- John Gilmore
- Julian Priester
- Pat Patrick
- Charles Davis
- Victor Sproles
- Marshall Allen
- Ronnie Boykins
- James Spaulding
- Phil Cohran
- Clifford Jarvis
- Lex Humphries
- Michael Ray
- June Tyson
- Ahmed Abdullah
- Danny Ray Thompson
- Jazz by Sun Ra
- Super-Sonic Jazz
- Sound of Joy
- Visits Planet Earth
- The Nubians of Plutonia
- Jazz in Silhouette
- Sound Sun Pleasure!!
- Interstellar Low Ways
- Fate in a Pleasant Mood
- Holiday for Soul Dance
- Angels and Demons at Play
- We Travel the Space Ways
- The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra
- Bad and Beautiful
- Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow
- Secrets of the Sun
- When Sun Comes Out
- Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy
- When Angels Speak of Love
- Other Planes of There
- The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One
- The Magic City
- The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume Two
- Strange Strings
- Monorails and Satellites
- Atlantis
- Space Is the Place (soundtrack)
- Space Is The Place
- Pathways to Unknown Worlds
- Cosmos
- Deep Purple
- Some Blues But Not the Kind That's Blue
- New Steps
- Other Voices, Other Blues
- Visions
- Lanquidity
- Sleeping Beauty
- Strange Celestial Road
- Reflections in Blue
- Hours After
- Blue Delight
- Somewhere Else
- Purple Night
- Mayan Temples
- Featuring Pharoah Sanders & Black Harold
- Nothing Is
- Nuits de la Fondation Maeght
- It's After the End of the World
- Black Myth/Out in Space
- Live in Egypt 1
- Nidhamu
- Horizon
- Live In Montreux
- Unity
- Live from Soundscape
- I, Pharaoh
- Sunrise in Different Dimensions
- Cosmo Omnibus Imagiable Illusion
- Thunder of the Gods