While it's become a reviewing cliché to comment on how amazing it is to have yet more hitherto unreleased Sun Ra musical treasures unearthed for our grateful ears, it is my great pleasure here to repeat that cliché. East Two + 5 (the vinyl version) or East Two + 7 (the CD/digital version), just released on Cosmic Myth, is just such a treasure. In fact, it's one of the strongest Ra releases of the last few years.
I will never complain about the continued onslaught of live Ra recordings (like the expanded Somewhere Over the Rainbow on Strut), but I am especially glad that this release primarily features previously unheard studio recordings. East Two focuses on the years 1972 and 1973 (two CD-only tracks are from the mid-'80s). The album's centerpiece is the title track, "East Two," a 15-minute extravaganza recorded at the same 1972 sessions as the Blue Thumb Space Is the Place and the Saturn Discipline 27-II. It's long been rumored that there was much more material from these Streeterville Studio sessions; this piece is the first proof of that, and it's a stunner. Producer Irwin Chusid's liner notes are, as always, detailed and informative, and he tells us that Pat Patrick plays electric bass here. Patrick supplies languid pacing for this slow, almost-but-not-quite processional groove voiced by the horns, accompanied by typical percussive clattering underneath. Ra's ghostly keyboards dip into his quintessential early-'70s sound, adding the swooping glissando effect he used prominently on the Streeterville "Space Is the Place." The mood shares an affinity with "Pan Afro" from Discipline 27-II, but overall the vibe here is more brooding, almost oppressive. The synthesizer lays down the underpinning for an ecstatic Kwame Hadi trumpet solo, followed by a brilliant high-energy, high-register solo from John Gilmore, who is on fire from the onset, matched by Ra's ever more aggressive keyboard comping. Eventually, the melody returns. For all that activity, including a mellow organ solo, the keyboards are relatively subdued. This is a beautiful, well-constructed composition that's easily worth the price of admission.
Besides "East Two," there are two other new Ra compositions that are unique to this collection. "In Tomorrow's Realm," a studio track recorded at Variety Studios in 1973, is a gorgeous, meandering mood piece, floating in mental space. Thanks to the presence of Ronnie Boykins on bass, this piece would have fit perfectly on Astro Black. Too bad it's Boykins' only appearance here. "East Five" is an intriguing studio recording of unknown provenance with really lovely acoustic piano throughout. An alto sax duet is taken over by an exhilarating solo from Gilmore, with Ra accompanying on piano. As the piece develops, with the horns coming in, it brings to mind some of the out group playing on Heliocentric Worlds. This is another fantastic track.
The only other piece here from Streeterville is an alternate take of "Rocket #9" with a slightly different arrangement that doesn't add much to the superior version released on Blue Thumb. The other Ra standards, "Lights on a Satellite" from the '70s and "Fate in a Pleasant Mood" (CD only) from a live show in 1984, are nice but don't really depart from previously-heard versions. "Fate" follows closely the arrangement used in the 1983 show on the Leo CD Love in Outer Space: Live in Utrecht.
Chusid tells us that the version of "Yesterdays," from an unknown concert ca. 1972, is the earliest-known concert appearance of this 1933 jazz standard obviously loved by Ra. It starts off with an engaging, seemingly unrelated solo keyboard intro, and the piece as a whole is wonderful--I've never heard him play it this way before.
Finally, the second CD-only track is "The Place of Five Points." This is a 1985 live version of a composition originally appearing on the studio LP Omniverse. It is one of only three live versions of this composition (Chusid claims this is the only one, but Earthly Recordings lists two more). With Ra's well-tuned solo
acoustic piano front and center (tuned pianos were much more of a rarity for live Ra than you'd expect for the '80s), the mood of this live version readily evokes the feel of
both Omniverse and its piano trio companion God Is More than Love Can Ever Be.
So, East Two is a hodge-podge of material, and even though the pieces come from several sources, the album flows just fine. And while it's nice to hear new versions of familiar songs, the aspect of this release that makes it a superlative collection is the inclusion of the three new compositions.
