The title may sound like I’m writing an article on Native Indians or some spiritual music. Actually, it’s an article about a meeting of two people who changed the face of music by experimenting with the new stuff of the era - electronics. It was a meeting between John Cage and Sun Ra, two of the most prominent figures in modern music history. They started their careers at the beginning of the 50’s (John Cage a bit earlier), but it took almost forty years for this summit to happen. It's a strange combination in many aspects. Although they are both representatives of avant-garde and experimental music, they had their methodical and aesthetic differences. John Cage was not fond of jazz as a source of inspiration for his “serious” approach. In a book of his, he explained that he considered jazz “rather silly” and “unsuited,” for ‘serious’ contexts. But in his compositions he left much to the discretion of the performer, which is a rare thing in classical music. On the other hand, jazzman Sun Ra left almost nothing to chance. He led his Arkestra completely obsessed with precision and discipline, something unlikely for a jazz context. No one could imagine what would happen on stage, but the result is surprisingly good (taking in mind that John Cage didn’t have a clue who Sun Ra was.) Cage’s contributions consist mainly of wordless vocalizations and poignant silences, while Ra recites poetry and unleashes solo after solo on his Yamaha DX7 synthesizer.
The concert and recording were organized by producer Rick Russo in June 1986. “Through my own work as a composer, I had met both John Cage and Sun Ra separately in the 1970s,” remembers Russo, who produced the show with his now partner Bronwyn Rucker. Together they had started their own label Meltdown Records, which would go on to release the original album the following year and needed to let people know. “I had the idea of putting both John Cage and Sun Ra together as a benefit concert to help launch the label.” It was one of the only records the label ever released. The music isn’t the best representative of what Cage and Ra stand for in the history of avant-garde music, but it holds such a great historical value that is almost impossible to get around it if you as an admirer of 20th-century music.
