''The Magic City'' is an album by the American

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

musician

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 out ...

and his Solar Arkestra. Recorded in two sessions in 1965, the record was released on Ra's own

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...

label in 1966. The record was reissued by Impulse! in 1973, and on compact disc by Evidence in 1993.

Birmingham, Alabama

The title ''Magic City'' refers to Ra's home town of

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...

, and to a large metal sign with the words 'Birmingham, The Magic City' erected in front of the railway station,

Birmingham Terminal Station The Birmingham Terminal Station (or simply Birmingham Terminal), completed in 1909, was the principal railway station for Birmingham, Alabama (United States) until the 1950s. It was demolished in 1969, and its loss still serves as a rallying ima ...

, in 1926 (se

) The cover art, by William White (as noted on the back side), directly references the dome of the station. Ra grew up next to the post office and close to the main station, where, "as a child, Sonny could look out the window and see the big sign over the railroad tracks that greeted visitors to The Magic City". John F. Szwed explains:

Critical reception

The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' is a reference work containing an encyclopedic directory of jazz recordings on CD which were (at the time of publication) currently available in Europe or the United States. The first nine editions were compiled by ...

'' includes the album in its suggested “Core Collection” of essential recordings. It is notable especially for the title track, on which "the Arkestra's range of feelings and sound is expressed in a design that's simply unprecedented in jazz." While it begins with use of

tape echo Delay is an audio signal processing technique that records an input signal to a storage medium and then plays it back after a period of time. When the delayed playback is mixed with the live audio, it creates an echo-like effect, whereby the or ...

recalling the experiments on '' Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow'', the key features quickly emerge: Ra's simultaneous

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

and

clavioline The clavioline is an electronic keyboard instrument, a forerunner to the analog synthesizer. It was invented by French engineer Constant Martin in 1947 in Versailles. The instrument consists of a keyboard and a separate amplifier and speaker ...

intertwining with Boykins's bass as the underpinning for new long-forms of group music-making which draw on varying sub-ensembles from the Arkestra through the course of the piece. Lindsay Planer writes: The ''

Spin Alternative Record Guide The ''Spin Alternative Record Guide'' is a music reference book compiled by the American music magazine '' Spin'' and published in 1995 by Vintage Books. It was edited by rock critic Eric Weisbard and Craig Marks, who was the magazine's editor-i ...

'' wrote that the album title's significance "further muddies un Ra'smyth and throws his most far-reaching and cohesive endeavor into poignant relief."

Track listing

12" vinyl

All songs written by Sun Ra.
Side A: # "The Magic City" – (27:22) Side B: # "The Shadow World" – (10:55) # "Abstract Eye" – (2:51) # "Abstract 'I'" – (4:08) "The Shadow World", "Abstract Eye" and "Abstract 'I'" were recorded live at Olatunji's loft, New York, Spring 1965. "The Magic City" was recorded during rehearsals around 24 September 1965.

Personnel

*Sun Ra –

* Pat Patrick –

baritone saxophone The baritone saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of instruments, larger (and lower-pitched) than the tenor saxophone, but smaller (and higher-pitched) than the bass. It is the lowest-pitched saxophone in common use - the bass, contra ...

flute The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...

tympani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally ...

John Gilmore John Gilmore may refer to: * John Gilmore (activist) (born 1955), co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Cygnus Solutions * John Gilmore (musician) (1931–1995), American jazz saxophonist * John Gilmore (representative) (1780–1845), ...

–

tenor saxophone The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (while th ...

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 ...

–

alto saxophone The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones were invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s and patented in 1846. The alto saxophone is pitched in E, smaller than the B tenor ...

oboe The oboe ( ) is a type of double reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range. A ...

piccolo The piccolo ( ; Italian for 'small') is a half-size flute and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. Sometimes referred to as a "baby flute" the modern piccolo has similar fingerings as the standard transverse flute, but the so ...

*Danny Davis –

*Harry Spencer –

*Robert Cummings –

bass clarinet The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays notes an octave bel ...

*Walter Miller –

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

*Chris Capers –

*Ali Hassan –

trombone The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the Brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the Standing wave, air column ...

*Teddy Nance –

*Bernard Pettaway –

Roger Blank Roger Blank (born December 19, 1938, New York City) is an American jazz drummer. Blank's grandfather played saxophone and his father William Blank was a trumpeter who had performed with Cootie Williams. Blank worked with Hank Mobley in Harlem f ...

–

Percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

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 pri ...

– bass *Jimhmi Johnson –

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Magic City 1966 albums Sun Ra albums Impulse! Records albums El Saturn Records albums Evidence Music albums