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Strange Strings
''Strange Strings'' is an album by the American Jazz musician Sun Ra and his Astro Infinity Arkestra. Recorded in 1966, the album was released in 1967 on Sun Ra's own ''Saturn'' label. The record was reissued on compact disc by Atavistic in 2007. ''Strange Strings'' is an oddity in Sun Ra's often discography, featuring his band members performing on string instruments they'd never before used. A study in ignorance After finishing a series of concerts at New York State colleges sponsored by ESP, Sun Ra decided to assemble a number of stringed instruments bought from curio shops and music stores. Ukuleles, Mandolins, Kotos, Koras, Chinese Lutes and 'Moon Guitars' were handed out to his reed and horn players in the belief that 'strings could touch people in a special way, different from other instruments.' The point was that the Arkestra didn't know how to play them - Sun Ra called it 'a study in ignorance.' 'Next they prepared a number of homemade instruments, including a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sun Ra
Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993), better known as Sun Ra, was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific output, and theatrical performances. For much of his career, Ra led "The Arkestra", an ensemble with an ever-changing name and flexible line-up. Born and raised in Alabama, Blount became involved in the Chicago jazz scene during the late 1940s. He soon abandoned his birth name, taking the name Le Sony'r Ra, shortened to Sun Ra (after Ra, the Egyptian god of the Sun). Claiming to be an alien from Saturn on a mission to preach peace, he developed a mythical persona and an idiosyncratic credo that made him a pioneer of Afrofuturism. Throughout his life he denied ties to his prior identity saying, "Any name that I use other than Ra is a pseudonym." His widely eclectic and avant-garde music echoed the entire history of jazz, from ragtime and ea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Koto (musical Instrument)
The is a Japanese plucked half-tube zither instrument, and the national instrument of Japan. It is derived from the Chinese and , and similar to the Mongolian , the Korean and , the Vietnamese , the Sundanese and the Kazakhstan . Koto are roughly in length, and made from Paulownia wood (''Paulownia tomentosa'', known as ). The most common type uses 13 strings strung over movable bridges used for tuning, different pieces possibly requiring different tuning. 17-string koto are also common, and act as bass in ensembles. Koto strings are generally plucked using three fingerpicks (), worn on the first three fingers of the right hand. Names and types The character for ''koto'' is , although is often used. However, (''koto'') is the general term for all string instruments in the Japanese language,(jaKotobank koto/ref> including instruments such as the , , , , , and so on. When read as , it indicates the Chinese instrument . The term is used today in the same way. The term ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1966 Albums
Events January * January 1 – In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa takes over as military ruler of the Central African Republic, ousting President David Dacko. * January 3 – 1966 Upper Voltan coup d'état: President Maurice Yaméogo is deposed by a military coup in the Republic of Upper Volta (modern-day Burkina Faso). * January 10 ** Pakistani–Indian peace negotiations end successfully with the signing of the Tashkent Declaration, a day before the sudden death of Indian prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri. ** The House of Representatives of the US state of Georgia refuses to allow African-American representative Julian Bond to take his seat, because of his anti-war stance. ** A Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference convenes in Lagos, Nigeria, primarily to discuss Rhodesia. * January 12 – United States President Lyndon Johnson states that the United States should stay in South Vietnam until Communist aggression there is ended. * January 15 – 1966 Nigeria ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sun Ra Albums
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radiation, and is the most important source of energy for life on Earth. The Sun's radius is about , or 109 times that of Earth. Its mass is about 330,000 times that of Earth, comprising about 99.86% of the total mass of the Solar System. Roughly three-quarters of the Sun's mass consists of hydrogen (~73%); the rest is mostly helium (~25%), with much smaller quantities of heavier elements, including oxygen, carbon, neon, and iron. The Sun is a G-type main-sequence star (G2V). As such, it is informally, and not completely accurately, referred to as a yellow dwarf (its light is actually white). It formed approximately 4.6 billionAll numbers in this article are short scale. One billion is 109, or 1,000,000,000. years ago from the gravitat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clifford Jarvis
Clifford Osbourne Jarvis (August 26, 1941 – November 26, 1999) was an American hard bop and free jazz drummer, who in the 1980s moved to London, England, where he spent the remainder of his career. Biography Clifford Jarvis, the son of Malcom “Shorty” Jarvis was born in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, where he studied at Berklee College of Music in the 1950s.John Fordham (jazz critic)"Clifford Jarvis" (obituary)''The Guardian'', December 1, 1999. Moving to New York City, he established himself in jazz between 1959 and 1966, by recording with bebop and hard-bop musicians including Randy Weston, Yusef Lateef, Freddie Hubbard, Barry Harris, Jackie McLean, John Patton, Chet Baker, Kenny Drew, Walter Davis, and Elmo Hope, and playing with Grant Green and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. He worked and recorded with musicians associated with free jazz, including Sun Ra (from 1962 to 1976), Pharoah Sanders, Sonny Simmons, Alice Coltrane, and Archie Shepp. During the 1980s, Ja ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ronnie Boykins
Ronald Boykins (December 17, 1935 – April 20, 1980) was a jazz bassist and is best known for his work with pianist/bandleader Sun Ra, although he had played with such disparate musicians as Muddy Waters, Johnny Griffin, and Jimmy Witherspoon prior to joining Sun Ra's Arkestra. Biography Like his fellow Sun Ra bandmates, John Gilmore and Pat Patrick, Boykins attended Chicago's DuSable High School and studied under its famed music teacher "Captain" Walter Dyett. He also studied with Ernie Shepard, who would later work with Duke Ellington. Boykins joined the Arkestra in 1958, during the Chicago period, and travelled with them to Canada and then to New York City. Boykins has been described as "the pivot around which much of Sun Ra's music revolved for eight years, as well as one of the most determining elements in the sound of the Arkestra." This is especially pronounced on the key recordings from 1965 ('' The Magic City'', '' The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One'' and ''T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pat Patrick (musician)
Laurdine Kenneth "Pat" Patrick Jr. (November 23, 1929 – December 31, 1991) was an American jazz musician and composer. He played baritone saxophone, alto saxophone, and Fender bass and was known for his 40-year association with Sun Ra. His son, Deval Patrick, was formerly governor of Massachusetts. Early life Patrick was born in East Moline, Illinois, to Laverne and Laurdine Kenneth Patrick His father (1905–2001), a native of Kansas, worked as an iron moulder at a factory at the time of his son's birth. Patrick first learned piano, drums, and trumpet as a child, and then switched to saxophones. He attended and studied music at DuSable High School in Chicago, where he met future bassist Richard Davis and future saxophonists John Gilmore and Clifford Jordan. Patrick was baritone saxophonist for the Regal Theater's house band while still at school. "In 1949 he enrolled at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, but he soon returned to the Chicago area to study at Wils ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Gilmore (musician)
John Gilmore (September 28, 1931 – August 20, 1995) was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and percussionist. He was known for his tenure with the avant-garde keyboardist/bandleader Sun Ra from the 1950s to the 1990s. Biography Gilmore was raised in Chicago and played clarinet from the age of 14. He took up the tenor saxophone while serving in the United States Air Force from 1948 through 1951. He then pursued a musical career, beginning as a tenor saxophonist on a national tour with the Harlem Globetrotters in an ensemble that included pianist Earl Hines in 1952. In 1953 Gilmore met pianist and bandleader Sun Ra who had a profound impact on him as a musician. For the next four decades, he recorded and performed almost exclusively with Sun Ra; first as a trio, and then in the band Arkestra. This was puzzling to some, who noted Gilmore's talent, and thought he could be a major star like John Coltrane or Sonny Rollins. Despite being five years older than Gilmore, Colt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marshall Allen
Marshall Belford Allen (born May 25, 1924) is an American free jazz and avant-garde jazz alto saxophone player. He also performs on flute, oboe, piccolo, and EWI (an electronic valve instrument made by Steiner, Crumar company). Allen is best known for his work with Sun Ra, having recorded and performed mostly in this context since the late 1950s, and having led The Sun Ra Arkestra since 1993, after Sun Ra's death. Critic Jason Ankeny describes Marshall as "one of the most distinctive and original saxophonists of the postwar era." Biography Marshall Allen was born in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. During the Second World War he enlisted in the 92nd Infantry Division and was stationed in France. Allen studied alto saxophone in Paris and played in Europe with Art Simmons and James Moody. He is best known for his mastery of pyrotechnic effects on the alto – he has said that he "wanted to play on a broader sound basis rather than on chords" (1971 interview with Tam Fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pipa
The pipa, pípá, or p'i-p'a () is a traditional Chinese musical instrument, belonging to the plucked category of instruments. Sometimes called the "Chinese lute", the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12 to 31. Another Chinese four-string plucked lute is the liuqin, which looks like a smaller version of the pipa. The pear-shaped instrument may have existed in China as early as the Han dynasty, and although historically the term ''pipa'' was once used to refer to a variety of plucked chordophones, its usage since the Song dynasty refers exclusively to the pear-shaped instrument. The pipa is one of the most popular Chinese instruments and has been played for almost two thousand years in China. Several related instruments are derived from the pipa, including the Japanese biwa and Korean bipa in East Asia, and the Vietnamese đàn tỳ bà in Southeast Asia. The Korean instrument is the only one of the three that is no longer wide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kora (instrument)
The kora (Manding languages: ''köra'') is a stringed instrument used extensively in West Africa. A kora typically has 21 strings, which are played by plucking with the fingers. It combines features of the lute and harp. Description The kora is built from gourd, cut in half and covered with cow skin to make a resonator with a long hardwood neck. The skin is supported by two handles that run underneath it. It has 21 strings, each of which plays a different note. These strings are supported by a notched, double free-standing bridge. The kora doesn't fit into any one category of musical instrument, but rather several, and must be classified as a "double-bridge-harp-lute." The strings run in two divided ranks, characteristic of a double harp. They do not end in a soundboard but are instead held in notches on a bridge, classifying it as a bridge harp. The strings originate from a string arm or neck and cross a bridge directly supported by a resonating chamber, also making it a lute ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mandolin
A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 strings, although five (10 strings) and six (12 strings) course versions also exist. There are of course different types of strings that can be used, metal strings are the main ones since they are the cheapest and easiest to make. The courses are typically tuned in an interval of perfect fifths, with the same tuning as a violin (G3, D4, A4, E5). Also, like the violin, it is the soprano member of a family that includes the mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello and mandobass. There are many styles of mandolin, but the three most common types are the ''Neapolitan'' or ''round-backed'' mandolin, the ''archtop'' mandolin and the ''flat-backed'' mandolin. The round-backed version has a deep bottom, constructed of strips of wood, glued togethe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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