Schon lange nicht mehr gehört, aber in irgendeiner Form hab ich das irgendwo …
On his very first tape machine, Sonny recorded Stuff Smith and himself playing in his tiny apartment at 5414 South Prairie Avenue. They performed a duet featuring the Solovox, a primitive electronic instrument that Sonny had picked up back in 1941, while still in Birmingham. Sonny had a thing about purple (he thought people would be healthier if they ate more purple food). He released Deep Purple nearly a quarter century later on his Saturn label, and the tune remained in his repertoire for the rest of his career. It would be featured on his very last recording session, when he accompanied Billy Bang for Soul Note in 1992.
Sun3. Sonny Blount and Stuff Smith
Deep PurpleHerman “Sonny” Blount (p, Solovox); Stuff Smith (vln).
Sonny Blount’s apartment, Chicago, July 29, 1948
Deep Purple (DeRose-Parish)
Saturn 485, Evidence 22014 [CD], Transparency 0316 [CD set, disk 3]Saturn 485 (released in 1973) was an LP titled Deep Purple (on some copies, Dreams Come True). The artists on this collection were billed as „Sun Ra and his Arkestra“; on some copies, „featuring Stuff Smith on Violin“ was added. The LP had printed white labels with a Chicago address for Saturn Records, but no covers were printed. Consequently, there are many cover varieties, consisting of various generic Sun Ra LP sleeves, many of them hand decorated by members of All of Side A of this LP was reissued on Evidence 22014, Sound Sun Pleasure!!, a CD from 1992.
The Solovox was an early electronic keyboard instrument (already in Sonny’s possession as early as 1941; it can be seen attached to his piano in a photograph that was reprinted in John F. Szwed’s book Space Is the Place). When asked for a session date, members of the Arkestra told Bob Rusch “pre 1953,” by which they meant before John Gilmore joined the band; previous discographies have generally said 1953. However, Anthony Barnett, author of Desert Sands: The Recordings and Performances of Stuff Smith, says that Smith probably left Chicago by the end of 1952, and had relocated to New York by February 1953 at the latest. Tommy Hunter recalled recording this get-together (supposedly, just one tune because Sonny was running out of tape) in 1948 or 1949. Sonny Blount had traveled to Cleveland earlier in 1948 to purchase an early Ampex recorder that used paper tapes. According to Michael Anderson, producer of the 14-CD boxed set on Transparency 0316, Sun Ra: The Eternal Myth Revealed Vol. 1 (released in 2011), the original tape box gives June 29, 1948 as the date.
von: http://myweb.clemson.edu/~campber/sunra.html
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