1978 saw two of funk’s greatest albums: Parliament’s Motor Booty Affair and Funkadelic’s One Nation Under A Groove, but funk had largely given way to disco in the mainstream. Bee Gees’ ‘Night Fever’ and ‘Stayin' Alive’ were #2 and 4 in the Billboard year-end chart, which largely comprised disco, pop, and rock.
What’s the Billboard chart got to do with Sun Ra? Not much, except that for most of his career the bandleader, keyboardist and composer was unconcerned with anything approaching commercial music. So his 1978 album Lanquidity stands out. It’s quite possible to dance to this record.
Sun Ra had hinted at a funkier path at the start of the decade. For 1970’s The Night of the Purple Moon, Sun Ra cut his Arkestra down to three side men and reined in the adventurism. Irwin Chusid notes, “listening to Purple Moon, one gets the sense that after a decade of experimentalism and free jazz, Sun Ra wanted to make an accessible pop record.”
(Warning for fans of the Bee Gees: the most accessible Sun Ra is still nothing like ‘Stayin' Alive’.)
Lanquidity starts with a sleepy horn melody and subtle drums, gradually picking up over the title track’s eight minutes. Then ‘Where Pathways Meet’ gets your foot properly tapping.
The track opens with Richard Williams’ bass and Danny Ray Thompson’s baritone sax playing in unison. It’s a nasty, stankface melody. The obnoxious, sustained note that opens the track is addictive through the first thirty seconds, but then the structure becomes freer and much of the band have a chance to solo.
It’s Williams’ bass that grounds ‘Pathways’ through the wild sax blows and at-times dissonant piano and horns. For the first two minutes Williams sticks mostly to that main line and plays variations of it later. Throughout the freakery that ensues, he hits the One.
Sun Ra was generally not a fan of guitars, or at least not in his bands. Lanquidity is a rare exception, featuring Slo Johnson (credited as “Disco Kid”) and Dale Williams. ‘Where Pathways Meet’ even features a brief guitar solo from 2:20.
Lanquidity focuses on groove as much as anything else. The following track, ‘That’s How I Feel’ will also get you moving – particularly its wobbly bass line with a delicious slide at the end of the first phrase.
The album still had a touch of Ra’s space mystery: on the closing track, he and bandmates whisper, “There are other worlds they have not told you of” and from 10:29 there’s a decidedly sci-fi synth chord.
The next year, ‘UFO’ (from Jupiter, 1979) was more overtly funky and has been likened to a Mothership Connection outtake.
It appears that Sun Ra never publicly discussed funk. He discussed much else: space, God, the White House, the Black House. Tom Buchler, who visited the musician shortly before the Lanquidity sessions and whose label Philly Jazz released the album, recalls Sun Ra saying,
“When I talk about outer space people listen. People are sleeping, and I'm here to wake them up from their slumber. The right music can wake people up.
“People are concerned about the wrong things. They are concerned about themselves. I'm here to wake them up and show them other things.”
Top image from Discogs.