Description
Release Date: 2021
Label: Modern Harmonic
Track List
- 1 The Place of Five Points
- 2 West End Side of Magic City [Vita No. 5]
- 3 Dark Lights in a White Forest
- 4 Omniverse
- 5 Visitant of the Ninth Ultimate
- 6 Over the Rainbow
- 7 The Sound Mirror
Notes
Omniverse, recorded in New York in 1979 and released that year on Sun Ra’s Saturn label, has been gathering dust for too long. It’s a fine, overlooked item in the vast Ra catalog. The tracks aren’t so much compositions as they are excursions, with only a few memorable themes or recurring motifs. It’s pure jazz, somewhat “inside” (for Sun Ra), with little of the aggressiveness and confrontation for which the bandleader was known. (Track 5, “Visitant of the Ninth Ultimate,” is an exception.) Omniverse is a very intimate album, offering lots of reflective piano in trio, quartet, and quintet settings, with spare horns. But instead of exhibiting a keyboard showcase, Sun Ra engages in dynamic interplay with the rhythm section. Moreover, the horns are featured largely as soloists; there are few ensemble passages.
