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Michael Ray & The Cosmic Krewe: Jazz Funk from the Future |
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New Orleans
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Wednesday, 18 January 2006 18:47 |
Michael Ray & The Cosmic Krewe
Jazz Funk from the Future
Evidence Records
By John Sinclair
The stage comes ablaze with color and light as Michael Ray & The Cosmic Krewe take their places amidst a bewildering array of instruments and pulsing neon sculptures of strange design. Multiple percussion stations, electronic keyboards, a set of steel pans on their stand, a grand piano, a set of traps, and a front line of trumpet, alto saxophone and valve trombone come into play, entering the musical fray with yelps of glee and moans and smears of rapture.
"This is dedicated to Sun Ra!" the brilliantly garbed trumpet man shouts as he conducts the equally colorful ensemble through the trying paces of the great composer's "Discipline #27". First the piano, then an alto saxophone explodes out of the familiar arrangement to blast its way across the harmonic sky, thundering and twisting the scales something fierce, scraping rhythms across counter-rhythms in the mode of the master himself, Mr. Marshall Allen.
Yes, there's a lot of Ra in Michael Ray & the Cosmic Krewe, because this outfit has been carefully designed to reflect the music and influence of the Magic One all the way over to audiences of today. Deeply based in the Sun Ra concept of Cosmo-Drama, or jazz as performance art with a message, the Cosmic Krewe has developed out of the broad musical experience of trumpet man, composer and producer Michael Ray to bring us what its leader calls Jazz Funk From The Future--representing the other side of the boundary of the last possibility."
A professional musician for more than 20 years, this Trenton, New Jersey native has simultaneously mined both sides of the mother lode of African-American popular music since 1978, playing supersonic jazz as Intergalactic Research Tone Specialist with Sun Ra & His Arkestra and prancing with his trumpet to the funky sounds of those platinum-selling, stadium-filling rhythm & blues best-sellers, Kool & The Gang.
Ray left his 10 years with Kool & The Gang behind when he settled in New Orleans in 1989 to immerse himself in funk of a different order. Here Michael has experimented with an ever-expanding pool of musicians to create an ensemble that could fuse the two sides of his musical personality into a new synthesis of future and funk that would extend the Sun Ra legacy into new realms of popular awareness.
Now, with its seamless transitions from smooth funk to space madness and back, this recording bears witness to the soundness of Ray's surmise. Three Sun Ra compositions, three Michael Ray tunes, a Kool & The Gang anthem salvaged from the trash can of funk, original ditties by Cosmic Krewe members Adam Kipple and Don Glasgo, and an atmospheric sound wash by Ray and neon artist Jerry Therio set out the parameters of this Jazz Funk from the Future, with thrilling details provided by scintillating soloists Dave Grippo (alto saxophone), Gregory Boyd (steel pans), Kipple on piano, Glasgo on trombone, and Ray himself on trumpet.
The performances presented here, recorded at Dinosaur Studios in New Orleans during August 1993, give us but a musical glimpse into the performance universe of the Cosmic Krewe, a world of multi-media extravaganzas combining music, dance, visuals, poetry and vocals, often around a specific theme or as a tribute to a particular composer.
"I've learned the value of utilizing cultural themes in order to elevate the audience's experience to a spiritual re-connection," Ray says. "These are true re-creational celebrations."
The fullest expression of Ray's Cosmo-Drama concept has been found in a series of what he calls Neon-Sound Performances, conceived in association with neon sculptor Jerry Therio and producer/Cosmic Krewe facilitator Gloria Powers and staged at several New Orleans venues during the past two years.
The Neon-Sound Performances were introduced in 1991 when Ray began to enhance his musical offerings with neon sculptures designed by Jerry Therio to change coloristic and rhythmic patterns according to musical cues provided by Ray. This modest success led to a presentation called Tribute to the Haitian Vibration, which integrated Ray's compositions with Therio's neon sculptures, phantasmagoric costumery by Jill Kelly, choreography and dance performance, all organized to pay homage to the intense but little-recognized Haitian influence on New Orleans culture and, by extension, on the development of jazz itself.
The Haitian Vibration concert would also give birth to the Cosmic Krewe as heard on this recording when Vermont-based percussionist Steve Ferraris came aboard. "There's this whole Vermont-New Orleans connection in the Cosmic Krewe," Ray points out, "which started back in 1990 when the Sun Ra Arkestra went up to Dartmouth College to do a residency."
Trombonist Don Glasgo, a member of the music faculty at Dartmouth and Goddard Colleges and director of the Barbary Coast Jazz Ensemble at Dartmouth, invited Ray back in November 1991 for a tribute to Miles Davis. Michael met Steve Ferraris backstage, jammed with him later, and invited Steve to New Orleans to play with the Cosmic Krewe on the Haitian Vibration concert.
"It was one of the first big gigs where we did lots of stage sets and stuff," Ferraris told Tom Huntington of the Vermont Collegian. "He and I just hit it off, right from the beginning."
Ferraris was soon appointed "First Officer" of the Cosmic Krewe and began bringing in new members from the Northeast. Glasgo joined the band, and the Krewe was augmented in the Fall of 1992 by pianist Adam Kipple, then at Dartmouth and a member of Glasgo's big band; bassist Stacey Starkweather, a member of Peter Apfelbaum's Hieroglyphic Ensemble; and alto saxophonist Dave Grippo, a graduate of the University of Vermont who teaches music at Johnson State College in Vermont.
"It was just a perfect fit for everyone the first time we played together," Ferraris told Tom Huntington. "Everybody had such a great time and felt good about what they played and got a great audience reaction and it just happened."
The Cosmic Krewe heard here is rounded out by its two New Orleans-based members: drummer Eddie Dejan, a member of an extensive New Orleans musical family who provides an unfailing drive and a sensitive ear; and steel drummer Gregory Boyd, a veteran of the U.S. Navy Steel Band who also contributes his fresh, tuneful sound to Charles Neville & Diversity, Charmaine Neville & Friends, Dr. John, and his own group, V.O.S.
The music presented here ranges from spritely bebop lines to Sun Ra space jazz, from the slick funk of "Champions" to the R&B-flavored "Beans and Rice," spiced up at almost every turn by the soulful alto saxophone of Dave Grippo, Adam Kipple's tasty piano excursions, Don Glasgo's wry trombone, and Ray's bubbly trumpet pyrotechnics. Familiar-sounding in its several parts, the Krewe's music has a uniqueness to its totality that parallels its leader's distinctive resume.
"Sun Ra would ask, 'What makes you so special, when most musicians are a dime a dozen?'" Ray remembers. "He would then answer, 'You have to be able to do the unduplicatable, or you will be replaced by a button."
So far there's no button that could duplicate these results, a fact that augurs well for the future of the Cosmic Krewe. May this auspicious debut lead to a long and fruitful career as a leader for the one and only Michael Ray.
--New Orleans
March 1994
(c) 1994, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.
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