Under a cobalt canopy of stitched-on stars, Sun Ra wanders the dunes of a great desert guided by the music of ephemeral winds. Walking in file are his loyal acolytes brandishing gifts of brass, ore, wood and skins. This procession is aimless to eyes locked in the material plane, but to those adapted to the ethereal, it is fervently propelled. This is the voyage of “Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy,” Sun Ra’s 1967 free form jazz record.
I was introduced to this auditory expedition by Ikah, a San Diego skater and regular at Shockus Skatepark in Ocean Beach. Ikah is a former DJ and vinyl enthusiast who boasts a collection of 30,000 records. “I like variety, but I keep my jazz records in the safest part of my house,” Ikah said. “Same place I keep my valuable Morrissey records, but I don’t listen to those because he’s a misogynistic piece of ****.”
“Cosmic Tones” is an earthbound interpretation of a cosmological journey through free form jazz, similar to experimental jazz classics, such as John Coltrane’s “ Love Supreme” and Miles Davis’ “Bitches Brew.” The introductory instrumentals on the opening track, “And Otherness,” have a sparse, cacophonous texture that when I attempt to translate appear as, “KIRCK KA KRICK- TU PONGK DA DONK-RHC SDHCUDUYGGUDH UAKK LINK NKNKNKN KNKLL LLLLLLLLLLLLLRAH!”
Ikah said he likes to listen to “Cosmic Tones” whenever he gets to skate early in the morning. “It’s something to put on before everyone gets here, when it’s still.” It’s the kind of album your Marty Robbins-loving, evangelical grandmother would consider as grounds for scheduling an exorcism.
Despite its chaos, it establishes a blank desert of sound that fills out the recording. It’s as if the sudden squeal of a horn is meant to bring attention to the absence that envelops it; the real music is the silence the instruments seem to be interrupting. The instrumentation is fittingly absurd. There seems to be an oboe screeching the melody like a strangled cobra, a pair of drums doing the best they can to be anything but in time and a bass clarinet ripping into my right ear telling me, “stay in line, Sun Ra is leading.”
As the procession continues their astral hajj, the near-egregious use of reverb sustains the desert-like soundscape of the record; every instrument seems to echo for miles, ricocheting across the barren wilderness of 30-inch analog tape. The attention to space and the veneration of that space by the musicians is akin to the records of Alice Coltrane, particularly “Journey in Satchidananda” with Pharoah Sanders.
Ikah says he listens to jazz because “it fits every moment in life you know? The Brazilian jazz artists have a word for it [saudade], finding joy in a world of…” —he waves his finger in a circle— “…well, you know.” Ikah believes that jazz is what most connects him to skating. “All skateboarding is benefitted by jazz. It goes hand in hand with the flowing, freestyle nature of it.”
The holy procession of the band comes to halt at the end of Side A, a moment of silence as the revered band leader prepares to speak. Beginning his revelations on Side B, Sun Ra makes his entrance on the shockingly uncompromising track, “Moon Dance.” With his left hand, Sun Ra delivers rhythm through the bass, and through his right, consistency in the drums; the grains of sand light up with the twinkling keys of his synthesizer.
“Moon Dance” has a surprising amount of structure that removes any question of why Ra leads the procession. Reigning in the chaos of the record, the instruments that moments before were untraceable, come together in harmonic cadence. But Ra has a loose right hand and, in what sounds like ecstasy, the drums push the boundaries of rhythm, reinventing time and meter until Ra folds his fingers to bring them back in line. I would think this aural dryland were on the moon, if only it didn’t sound so blue.
The final track, “Voice of Space,” is carried by a rabid saxophone that must have snorted whatever dust resides in the rings of Saturn. Following up the tail-end of the procession, the drums and horns at its head have drifted far into the distance chased by the dry, rivulet trails of sax and snare. Sun Ra gives one more blare of his organ, and as the record winds down all that remains is the fading starlight, the crowning rays of dawn and the solitary listener, skateboard wheels echoing across concrete dunes.
