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Unity (Sun Ra Album)
''Unity'' is a live double album by jazz composer, bandleader and keyboardist Sun Ra and his Arkestra recorded in 1977 and originally released on the Italian Horo label.Sun Ra discography
accessed July 4, 2014


Reception

The review by Michael G. Nastos awarded the album 4½ stars naming it "The Arkestra's best live album. Loaded with standards. Incredible musicianship".Nastos, M. G.
Allmusic Review
accessed July 4, 2014


Track listing

''All compositions by Sun Ra except as indicated'' ''Side O ...
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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 Music of Chicago, 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 ...
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Tadd Dameron
Tadley Ewing Peake Dameron (February 21, 1917 – March 8, 1965) was an American jazz composer, arranger, and pianist. Biography Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Dameron was the most influential arranger of the bebop era, but also wrote charts for swing and hard bop players. The bands he arranged for included those of Count Basie, Artie Shaw, Jimmie Lunceford, Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Eckstine, and Sarah Vaughan. In 1940–41, Dameron was the piano player and arranger for the Kansas City band Harlan Leonard and his Rockets. He and lyricist Carl Sigman wrote " If You Could See Me Now" for Sarah Vaughan and it became one of her first signature songs. According to the composer, his greatest influences were George Gershwin and Duke Ellington. In the late 1940s, Dameron wrote arrangements for the big band of Dizzy Gillespie, who gave the première of his large-scale orchestral piece ''Soulphony in Three Hearts'' at Carnegie Hall in 1948. Also in 1948, Dameron led his own group in New Y ...
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Trombone
The trombone (, 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 lips vibrate inside a mouthpiece, causing the Standing wave, air column inside the instrument to vibrate. Nearly all trombones use a telescoping slide mechanism to alter the Pitch (music), pitch instead of the brass instrument valve, valves used by other brass instruments. The valve trombone is an exception, using three valves similar to those on a trumpet, and the superbone has valves and a slide. The word "trombone" derives from Italian ''tromba'' (trumpet) and ''-one'' (a suffix meaning "large"), so the name means "large trumpet". The trombone has a predominantly cylindrical bore like the trumpet, in contrast to the more conical brass instruments like the cornet, the flugelhorn, the Baritone horn, baritone, and the euphonium. The most frequently encountered trombones are the tenor trombone and bass tr ...
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Craig S
Craig may refer to: People and fictional characters *Craig (surname), including a list of people and fictional characters * Craig (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Clan Craig, a Scottish clan Places United States *Craig, Alaska, a city * Craig, Colorado, a city * Craig, Iowa, a city * Craig, Missouri, a city * Craig, Montana, an unincorporated place * Craig, Nebraska, a village * Craig, Ohio, an unincorporated community * Craig County, Oklahoma * Craig County, Virginia * Craig Township, Switzerland County, Indiana * Craig Township, Burt County, Nebraska * Mount Craig (Colorado) * Mount Craig (North Carolina) * Craig Mountain, Oregon *Craig Field (airport), a public airport near Selma, Alabama, formerly: **Craig Air Force Base, a former United States Air Force base * Craig Hospital, a neurorehabilitation and research hospital in Englewood, Colorado, United States * Fort Craig, a United States Army fort in New Mexico * The Craig School, an independ ...
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Michael Ray (trumpeter)
Michael Ray (born December 24, 1952) is an American jazz trumpeter. He tours extensively with Kool & the Gang, Sun Ra and the successor Sun Ra Arkestra under Marshall Allen's direction following Sun Ra's passing. For a period from the mid-1990s to the present he leads his own band, Michael Ray and the Cosmic Krewe. His playing with Sun Ra and independently has incorporated jazz, funkjazz, R & B, electronica and fusion (music), fusion genres. Background and early professional life He is originally from Trenton, New Jersey and was born December 24, 1952. His professional start was performing with R & B acts such as Patti LaBelle, The Delfonics and The Stylistics. Michael Ray is married to Laranah Phipps Ray, Jazz vocalist of Phipps Family, Newark's 1st Family of Jazz Sun Ra Ray joined Sun Ra's band in 1978. He appears on Sun Ra albums on Saturn Records and on CDs released by Evidence, Enja, HatHut, Rounder Records, Black Saint/Soul Note, Horo Records, A&M Records, Philly Jazz and ES ...
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Ahmed Abdullah
Ahmed Abdullah (born Leroy Bland; May 10, 1946) is an American jazz trumpeter who was a prominent member of Sun Ra's band. Biography He began playing the trumpet at age 13 in his native New York City. One of the first groups he performed with was the Master Brotherhood. By the 1970s, he was performing in New York's loft scene with various groups including the Melodic Art-Tet ( Charles Brackeen, Roger Blank and Ronnie Boykins, later William Parker) and joined the Sun Ra Arkestra. Abdullah formed his own band in 1972, and joined the Sun Ra Arkestra in 1975, working there on and off until 1993, when Sun Ra died. He stayed on with the Arkestra after Sun Ra's demise working under the leadership of John Gilmore and then Marshall Allen. During his time with the Arkestra, Abdullah participated in more than 25 recordings and traveled extensively with Sun Ra.Ahmed Abdullah with Louis Reyes Rivera"Excerpts from A Strange Celestial Road (Traveling the Spaceways)", Ahmedian.com; accessed Mar ...
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Rocksichord
Rocky Mount Instruments (RMI) was a subsidiary of the Allen Organ Company, based in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, active from 1966 to 1982. The company was formed to produce portable musical instruments, and manufactured several electronic pianos, harpsichords, and organs that used oscillators to create sound, instead of mechanical components like an electric piano. The first significant instrument produced by RMI was the Rock-Si-Chord, which emulated a harpsichord. The best-selling and most widely used instrument was the RMI Electra-piano, that was played by numerous artists in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including Steve Winwood, Genesis' Tony Banks, and Yes' Rick Wakeman. Later, the company became a pioneer of digital synthesizers, including the Keyboard Computer and RMI Harmonic Synthesizer; both were used by Jean Michel Jarre. The company struggled to compete with digital synthesizers in the early 1980s, which led to its closure. A number of sample libraries featuring R ...
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Electronic Organ
An electric organ, also known as electronic organ, is an electronic keyboard instrument which was derived from the pump organ, harmonium, pipe organ and theatre organ. Originally designed to imitate their sound, or orchestral sounds, it has since developed into several types of instruments: * #Tonewheel organs, Hammond-style organs used in pop music, pop, Rock music, rock and jazz; * #Digital church organs, digital church organs, which imitate pipe organs and are used primarily in churches; * other types including #Combo organs, combo organs, #Home organs, home organs, and #Software organs, software organs. History Predecessors ;Harmonium The immediate predecessor of the electronic organ was the pump organ, harmonium, or reed organ, an instrument that was common in homes and small churches in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In a fashion not totally unlike that of pipe organs, reed organs generate sound by forcing air over a set of reeds by means of a bellows, usually ...
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Harry Williams (songwriter)
Harry Hiram Williams (August 23, 1879 – May 15, 1922) was an American composer, lyricist, and publisher of popular music from 1903 until his death in 1922. One of his early hits, written in 1905 with Egbert Van Alstyne, is " In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree". He also produced story ideas and directed silent movies with Mack Sennett for Keystone Studios, according to Sennett's biography ''The King of Comedy''. Williams joined The Lambs Club in 1908. References External links * discogs.com/artistHarry Williams recordingsat the Discography of American Historical Recordings The Discography of American Historical Recordings (DAHR) is a database catalog of master recordings made by American record companies during the 78rpm era. The 78rpm era was the time period in which any flat disc records were being played at .... 1879 births 1922 deaths People from Faribault, Minnesota Songwriters from Minnesota {{US-composer-19thC-stub ...
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Art Hickman
Arthur George Hickman (June 13, 1886 – January 16, 1930) was a drummer, pianist, and bandleader of one of the first big bands. Career Hickman founded a sextet in San Francisco in 1913. The band's first job was playing at training camp for the baseball team the San Francisco Seals. Next it was hired to perform at the St. Francis Hotel. Popularity allowed Hickman to expand his sextet and hire Ben Black, Earl Burtnett, Fred Coffman, Clyde Doerr, Steve Douglas, Frank Ellis, Dick Noolan, Ed Fitzpatrick, Jess Fitzpatrick, Roy Fox, Ray Hoback, Vic King, Lou Marcasie, Hank Miller, Mark Moica, Bert Ralton, Juan Ramos, Forrest Ray, Walt Rosener, Bela Spiller, Dick Winfree. In 1915, they performed at the world's fair in San Francisco. Four years later they were hired by Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. to play at his nightclub on the roof of the New Amsterdam Theatre in New York City. During the next year, they accompanied the Ziegfeld Follies. Hickman's orchestra went back to California and playe ...
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Rose Room
"Rose Room", also known as "In Sunny Roseland", is a 1917 jazz standard, music by Art Hickman, lyrics by Harry Williams. It is almost always performed as an instrumental. Composed at a time when the popularity of ragtime was fading in favor of thirty-two-bar form and twelve-bar blues songs, the song has been called "definitely ahead of its time" by composer Alec Wilder. Indeed, while popular in the late 1910s and early 1920s, the song enjoyed its biggest popularity during the swing era.Chris TyleRose Room overviewat ''jazzstandards.com'' - retrieved on 24 May 2009 The song was named after the Rose Room in St. Francis Hotel, where Hickman was playing at the time.Gene Lees: ''Cats of Any Color: Jazz Black and White''. Oxford University Press US, 1995. . p. 204 In 1914, jazz pioneer Bert Kelly was a member of Hickman's band. History Duke Ellington is credited in reviving the popularity of "Rose Room" with his 1932 recording. Ellington later used the song's chord progression in hi ...
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Richard Rodgers
Richard Charles Rodgers (June 28, 1902 – December 30, 1979) was an American Musical composition, composer who worked primarily in musical theater. With 43 Broadway theatre, Broadway musicals and over 900 songs to his credit, Rodgers was one of the best-known American composers of the 20th century, and his compositions had a significant influence on popular music. Rodgers is known for his songwriting partnerships, first with lyricist Lorenz Hart and then with Oscar Hammerstein II. With Hart he wrote musicals throughout the 1920s and 1930s, including ''Pal Joey (musical), Pal Joey'', ''A Connecticut Yankee (musical), A Connecticut Yankee'', ''On Your Toes'' and ''Babes in Arms.'' With Hammerstein he wrote musicals through the 1940s and 1950s, such as ''Oklahoma!'', ''Flower Drum Song'', ''Carousel (musical), Carousel'', ''South Pacific (musical), South Pacific'', ''The King and I'', and ''The Sound of Music''. His collaborations with Hammerstein, in particular, are celebr ...
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