Week 2: Nuclear War

5. SUN RA ARKESTRA - Nuclear War
Y Records, 1982; Atavistic, 2001

"It's a motherfucker/Don't you know/If they push that button/Your ass got to go." Thus goes the mantra, repeated over and over again into oblivion by Ra and a chorus of paranoid backup singers on the funky title track (and opener) from Sun Ra's lost little gem of a record, recorded in 1982 and put out as a 12" single on Italian label Y Records but not given a legit release until 2001 and well THANK GOD IN HEAVEN for whomever decided to give this one a go, because it's a brain-burner. The aforementioned opening track, with its scary pseudo-soothsayin' warnings of death and destruction, ambles along with a nice little dance shuffle and some sparse piano chords before giving way to a drunken dirge called "Retrospect," which is over before you know it and in comes a Duke Ellington standard, "Drop Me Off in Harlem," played faithfully and without pretense and you're all Huh? June Tyson arrives with some flat-out lovely vocals for the next track, "Sometimes I'm Happy," and everything makes complete sense. From then on it's smooth sailing; or, at the very least it's as smooth as you're gonna get from the Arkestra. Their unholy big band/hard bop/avant-funk concoction has come to a boil and simmers nicely on Nuclear War; jazz purists may scoff at Ra's more esoteric tendencies (others among us love 'em), but when ol' June shows up again on the end track and implores us all to "Smile/Through your tears and sorrow/Smile/And maybe tomorrow/You'll see the sun come shining through," even the saddest among us might allow a grin or two.