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    SUN RA: JOYFUL NOISE
    MUG SHOT PRODUCTIONS

    SUN RA: JOYFUL NOISE

    Blu-Ray · 1 disc

    $17.99
    Artist
    SUN RA
    Released
    Dec 11, 2015
    Robert Mugge filmed jazz great Sun Ra and members of his eclectic ensemble on location in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. between 1978 and 1980. The resulting 60-minute film includes multiple public and private performances, poetry readings, a band rehearsal, interviews, and extensive improvisation. Transferred to HD from the original 16mm film and lovingly restored for the best possible viewing experience.
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  • SUN RA: JOYFUL NOISE

    SUN RA: JOYFUL NOISE

    MUG SHOT PRODUCTIONS Dec 2015
    1 disc
    Blu-Ray
    $17.99
    • SUN RA: JOYFUL NOISE
    MUG SHOT PRODUCTIONS

    SUN RA: JOYFUL NOISE

    DVD · 1 disc

    $17.99
    Artist
    SUN RA
    Released
    Dec 11, 2015
    Robert Mugge filmed jazz great Sun Ra and members of his eclectic ensemble on location in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. between 1978 and 1980. The resulting 60-minute film includes multiple public and private performances, poetry readings, a band rehearsal, interviews, and extensive improvisations. Transferred to HD from the original 16mm film and lovingly restored for the best possible viewing experience.
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  • SUN RA: JOYFUL NOISE

    SUN RA: JOYFUL NOISE

    MUG SHOT PRODUCTIONS Dec 2015
    1 disc
    DVD
    $17.99
    • JAZZ BY SUN RA
    JAZZ WAX RECORDS

    JAZZ BY SUN RA

    Vinyl · 1 disc

    $22.99
    Artist
    SUN RA
    Released
    Jan 23, 2026
    Jazz by Sun Ra was Sun Ra's first properly distributed LP. Although some sources state it was his debut, he had previously recorded and released various other sessions dating back to 1949 on his own Saturn label. The LP featured original compositions by Sun Ra along with one by Arkestral bassist Richard Evans. The single non Arkestral composition was "Possession", by Harry Revel, which had been written for Les Baxter's album Perfume Set to Music. "Possession" was arranged for the Arkestra by the Texan pianist and composer Prince Shell. THE COMPLETE ALBUM + 1 BONUS TRACK - 180-GRAM VIRGIN VINYL - Cover printed with special metallic gold ink (PANTONE 871) - LIMITED EDITION
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  • JAZZ BY SUN RA

    JAZZ BY SUN RA

    JAZZ WAX RECORDS Jan 2026
    1 disc
    Vinyl
    $22.99
    Mix & Match
  • HELIOCENTRIC WORLDS OF SUN RA

    HELIOCENTRIC WORLDS OF SUN RA

    ESP DISK LTD. Sep 2010
    3 discs
    CD
    $30.99
  • SUN RA ARKESTRA MEETS SALAH RAGAB IN EGYPT

    SUN RA ARKESTRA MEETS SALAH RAGAB IN EGYPT

    STRUT RECORDS Jun 2022
    1 disc
    CD
    $16.49
    • RA TO THE RESCUE
    MODERN HARMONIC

    RA TO THE RESCUE

    CD · 1 disc

    $16.49
    Artist
    SUN RA
    Released
    May 27, 2022
    Digitally remastered edition. One of the rarer albums in the Sun Ra canon, RTTR originally entered our orbit in 1983, mystifying listeners and confounding Ra fanatics with the minimal info on the Saturn pressing. Recorded at several locations over several years (including legendary avant-garde arts enclave, the Squat Theater in NYC), the tracks here include everything from Ra's sci-fi synthesizer insanity, Marshall Allen's skronking sax, an excellent Arkestra vocal track 'They Plan To Leave,' and so much more.
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  • RA TO THE RESCUE

    RA TO THE RESCUE

    MODERN HARMONIC May 2022
    1 disc
    CD
    $16.49
    • SECRETS OF THE SUN
    GREYSCALE

    SECRETS OF THE SUN

    CD · 1 disc

    $16.99
    Artist
    SUN RA & ARKESTRA
    Released
    Apr 14, 2017
    Digitally remastered edition of this 1962 album. Secrets of the Sun is considered one of the more accessible recordings from his 'Solar' period. Originally released on Ra's own Saturn label in 1965, the record was unavailable for many years. Sun Ra was a jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific output, and theatrical performances. For much of his career, Ra led The Arkestra, an ensemble with an ever-changing name and flexible line-up. Born and raised in Alabama, Blount would eventually become involved in the 1940s Chicago jazz scene. He soon abandoned his birth name, taking the name Sun Ra (after Ra, the Egyptian God of the Sun) and developing a complex persona and mythology that would make him a pioneer of Afrofuturism: he claimed he was an alien from Saturn on a mission to preach peace, and throughout his life he consistently denied any ties to his prior identity. His widely eclectic and avant-garde music would eventually touch on virtually the entire history of jazz, ranging from swing music and bebop to free jazz and fusion, and his compositions ranged from keyboard solos to big bands of over 30 musicians. From the mid-1950s until his death, Ra led the musical collective The Arkestra (which featured artists such as Marshall Allen, John Gilmore, June Tyson throughout it's various iterations). It's performances often included dancers and musicians dressed in elaborate, futuristic costumes inspired by ancient Egyptian attire and the space age. Of this album, Troy Collins writes: 'Marking a transition in it's development between the advanced swing of the early Chicago-era recordings and the increased free-form experimentation of it's New York tenure, this album also reveals the first recorded versions of two Ra standards, "Friendly Galaxy" and "Love in Outer Space." Accessible, yet segueing into vanguard territory, this album highlights a fertile period in the Arkestra's history. Looser and more aggressive than it's Chicago recordings, these pieces find the Arkestra pushing at the limits of harmony and tonality.'
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  • SECRETS OF THE SUN

    SECRETS OF THE SUN

    GREYSCALE Apr 2017
    1 disc
    CD
    $16.99
    • SWIRLING
    STRUT RECORDS

    SWIRLING

    CD · 1 disc

    $16.49
    Artist
    SUN RA ARKESTTRA
    Released
    Nov 06, 2020
    The planets align once again as the mighty Sun Ra Arkestra, under the direction of the maestro Marshall Allen, release their first studio album in over twenty years entitled Swirling. Recorded at Rittenhouse Soundworks in Philadelphia, the new recording represents the continuation of a heartfelt rebirth of the Arkestra under Allen's guidance since Sun Ra left the planet in 1993, gaining new generations of followers from their regular touring across the globe. With a big band line-up featuring long-standing Arkestra members including Danny Ray Thompson (RIP), Michael Ray, Vincent Chancey, Knoel Scott, Cecil Brooks, Atakatune (RIP), Elson Nascimento and Tyler Mitchell, the album is a full-blooded celebration of Sun Ra's legacy.
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  • SWIRLING

    SWIRLING

    STRUT RECORDS Nov 2020
    1 disc
    CD
    $16.49
    • PLANETS OF LIFE OR DEATH: AMIENS 73
    STRUT RECORDS

    PLANETS OF LIFE OR DEATH: AMIENS 73

    CD · 1 disc

    $16.49
    Artist
    SUN RA
    Released
    May 19, 2015
    Enlightenment is... our tomorrow... It has no plane... of sorrow. Hereby, our invitation... We do invite you... Be of our Space World Sun Ra And His Intergalactic Research Arkestra 'Enlightenment' Within their 1973 European tour, Sun Ra and his Arkestra had just completed a residency at the legendary Gibus in Paris in October before travelling to Amiens for a Sunday afternoon concert. Those filing into the city's Maison de la Culture that day would have little idea of the intense, visceral experience that awaited them. "Sun Ra's use of the Arkestra as his instrument in an onslaught of sound, colour and movement stimulated and even shocked the senses and the shakras of audience participants onto a higher plane of spirit consciousness," explains the Arkestra's Knoel Scott. On Side 1, the session kicks off with the theatrical overture, 'Enlightenment' as Sun Ra and vocalist June Tyson invite the audience to "be of our space world". Ra then moves into a rare instrumental version of 'Love In Outer Space', transforming the perennial Arkestra classic into a raw, ritualistic experience: "this was a vehicle for the Arkestra's space dancers. Close your eyes and imagine them writhing across the stage in celestial homage," explains Scott. Side 2 of the album opens with the glistening 'Lights On A Satellite', a feature for the spiritual tenor sax of John Gilmore, playing in unison with trumpeter Kwame Hadi. Closing track, the epic, chaotic, anxious 'Discipline 27-II / What Planet Is This' moves from abstract, freeform keyboard work from Sun Ra to a walking groove as Sun Ra and June Tyson take a thinly veiled psychedelic swipe at life on earth: "If this is a planet of life, why do people die here? " Following 2014's landmark compilation presented by Marshall Allen, 'In the Orbit Of Ra', Strut and Art Yard join forces once more for the first release anywhere of 'Planets Of Life Or Death'. Recorded direct from the sound board and mastered from first generation reel to reel, the title is exclusively available for Record Store Day 2015. The release features rare photos from Sun Ra's 1973 European tour by photographer Jan Persson with sleeve notes by Knoel Scott.
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  • PLANETS OF LIFE OR DEATH: AMIENS 73

    PLANETS OF LIFE OR DEATH: AMIENS 73

    STRUT RECORDS May 2015
    1 disc
    CD
    $16.49
    • WHEN ANGELS SPEAK OF LOVE
    GREYSCALE

    WHEN ANGELS SPEAK OF LOVE

    CD · 1 disc

    $16.99
    Artist
    SUN RA & HIS MYTH SCIENCE ARKESTRA
    Released
    Feb 24, 2017
    Digitally remastered edition. Sun Ra was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his experimental music, "cosmic philosophy", prolific output, and theatrical performances. He was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1979. For much of his career, Ra led "The Arkestra", an ensemble with an ever-changing name and flexible line-up. As John Szwed writes about "When Angels Speak of Love was considered a bizarre record when it was heard even three years later, made more bizarre by extreme echo, horns straining for the shrillest notes possible, rhythms layered, their polyrhythmic effect exaggerated by massive reverberation (which was abruptly turned off and on). 'Next Stop Mars' is the centerpiece of the album, a very long work which opens with a space chant, followed by Allen and Gilmore taking chances on their horns beyond what almost any other musician would dare at that time. Sun Ra played behind them, again relentlessly spinning around a single tonal center with two-handed independence, then rumbling thunderously at the bottom of the keyboard against Boykins's bass, a clangor made heavier by electronic enhancement." In other words, Classic RA and now finally available on CD.
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  • WHEN ANGELS SPEAK OF LOVE

    WHEN ANGELS SPEAK OF LOVE

    GREYSCALE Feb 2017
    1 disc
    CD
    $16.99
    • FATE IN A PLEASANT MOOD
    GREYSCALE

    FATE IN A PLEASANT MOOD

    CD · 1 disc

    $16.99
    Artist
    SUN RA
    Released
    Sep 01, 2017
    CD reissue. The history of music is full of extraordinary characters. Even some of the best known classical musicians had lives which, even by today's standards, were both shocking and bizarre. But when it came to the 20th Century, things really began to become peculiar. The notorious Sun Ra, who claimed to be an alien from the planet Saturn, or something like that, is responsible for some of the most challenging music that has ever been recorded. The music on this album was recorded in a marathon session of between 30-40 songs either at the RCA Studios or possibly at Hall Recording Company (both in Chicago), around 17 June 1960. Other albums to include tracks from the session include Interstellar Low Ways, Holiday for Soul Dance, Angels and Demons at Play and We Travel The Space Ways. The problem with trying to catalog the output of many artists from this period is that, back then, jazz and other popular musics were not seen as being of any lasting importance. So recording details, and lists of who played what, when and where - although things which we take for granted today - are often missing, and one has to piece together the facts from a myriad of different sources. When you add to this the fact that Sun Ra was notorious for his eccentricities (some have even described him as being barking mad), and attempting to come up with any truly cogent narrative is monumentally difficult. This music is actually from the more conventional end of Sun Ra's output and sounds like a trippier version of what Miles Davis and John Coltrane were doing at a time. Very groovy stuff.
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  • FATE IN A PLEASANT MOOD

    FATE IN A PLEASANT MOOD

    GREYSCALE Sep 2017
    1 disc
    CD
    $16.99
    • MONORAILS & SATELLITES
    GREYSCALE

    MONORAILS & SATELLITES

    CD · 1 disc

    $16.99
    Artist
    SUN RA
    Released
    Dec 08, 2017
    CD reissue. This is an album of solo piano compositions by the American Jazz musician Sun Ra, (real name Herman Poole Blount) recorded in 1966. The album showcases Ra's skills as a pianist, which are often compared to Cecil Taylor's. Monorails and Satellites, a 1966 solo piano recording, showcases Ra's unique style, which bridges the bluesy architecture of Jelly Roll Morton with the angularity of Monk and Cecil Taylor's ascent beyond traditional structure. According to Ra's biographer, John Szwed, the title might refer to Stanley Kubrick's 2001, featuring a monolith that Ra remembered as a monorail, 'perhaps connecting it to his UFO experience'. Both albums shared the same sleeve of disembodied hands playing a keyboard that seems to be plugged directly into Saturn.
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  • MONORAILS & SATELLITES

    MONORAILS & SATELLITES

    GREYSCALE Dec 2017
    1 disc
    CD
    $16.99
    • SPACE IS THE PLACE
    MODERN HARMONIC

    SPACE IS THE PLACE

    Vinyl · 3 discs

    $145.99
    Artist
    SUN RA
    Released
    May 26, 2023
    This deluxe package includes three LPs, a Blu-ray disc, and a DVD. The audio portion contains the original music composed for the film, which was eventually released as a soundtrack in 1993. It also features The Mathematics of the Altered Destiny, a third, previously unissued LP recorded in the same soundtrack sessions, which is finally being released half a century after it was recorded. This newly discovered LP is heavy on the prose of Sun Ra, as he and June Tyson bestow countless bits of information and inspiration onto the listener. The film soundtrack is an entirely different journey than the 1973 Blue Thumb LP it shares it's title with. We suggest you take both journeys. These recordings were sourced from the Sun Ra tape vault, then were digitally restored to make an album this special sound the best it possibly could. The Blu-ray contains the entire glorious film complete with film artifacts and was sourced from the restoration prepared by Rapid Eye Movies of Germany. The bonus features on the Blu-ray are composed of Ra and Ra-centric material from the Modern Harmonic archives, including video from the Outer Space Visual Communicator footage.
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  • SPACE IS THE PLACE

    SPACE IS THE PLACE

    MODERN HARMONIC May 2023
    3 discs
    Vinyl
    $145.99
    • JAZZ MASTERS VOL. 3
    GREYSCALE JAZZ

    JAZZ MASTERS VOL. 3

    CD · 2 discs

    $14.99
    Artist
    SUN RA
    Released
    Aug 23, 2019
    Sun Ra, was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific output, and theatrical performances. For much of his career, Ra led "The Arkestra", an ensemble with an ever-changing name and flexible line-up. Two albums "Monorails and Satellites" and "Pictures of Infinity" together in this package for the price of one!
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  • JAZZ MASTERS VOL. 3

    JAZZ MASTERS VOL. 3

    GREYSCALE JAZZ Aug 2019
    2 discs
    CD
    $14.99
    • EXCELSIOR MILL
    MODERN HARMONIC

    EXCELSIOR MILL

    CD · 1 disc

    $17.99
    Artist
    SUN RA
    Released
    May 24, 2024
    The outsized sounds emerging from the Excelsior Mill organ captured here constitute a unique chapter in the Sun Ra story, a dizzying phantasmagoria that offers a whole new view on what Ra could do. It might thrill you; it might unnerve you; it might strum your heartstrings; it might spook the living daylights out of you. Most likely you'll experience all of the above before the jolting musical jeremiad is done. The CD includes the full uncut show with music not featured on the LP version! When you're Sun Ra, you don't need synthesizers to evoke apocalyptic visions and interstellar excursions. You don't even need a band. Ra is most widely known for working with various iterations of his Arkestra, but he was no stranger to unaccompanied keyboard expeditions. His discography contains solo piano albums, solo Fender Rhodes records, and solo recordings on conventional organ, the latter going as far back as his home recordings from the 1940s. But none of those instruments ever offered Sun Ra the kind of sonic artillery that waited beneath his fingers and feet when he sat before the keyboards, pedals, and multicolored constellation of tabs controlling the Wurlitzer pipe organ. Mystic and magisterial, Ra comes off here like a cross between a demonically riffing '50s horror movie villain and a futuristic congregation leader delivering the interplanetary gospel. Brassy stabs provide the kind of punctuation that could be graphically rendered as an endless string of exclamation marks in 500-point font. String-like swoops and swirls dance across the top of the carnage, cooling the flames just enough to keep the whole thing from combusting (for a while at least) but never dousing the fiery fury that Ra draws forth from the instrument.
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  • EXCELSIOR MILL

    EXCELSIOR MILL

    MODERN HARMONIC May 2024
    1 disc
    CD
    $17.99
  • PROPHET

    PROPHET

    MODERN HARMONIC Dec 2022
    1 disc
    CD
    $17.99
    • FIRESIDE CHAT WITH LUCIFER
    MODERN HARMONIC

    FIRESIDE CHAT WITH LUCIFER

    CD · 1 disc

    $16.49
    Artist
    SUN RA
    Released
    Nov 06, 2020
    Digitally remastered edition. An F-bomb saturated hip-hop call and response club cut... from Sun Ra?! While the most renown track in this omniversal opus is the atomic expletive-filled repartee Nuclear War, there is so much more to this dark mysterious journey through the mind of Sun Ra. The sprawling, suite-like 20-minute title track sustains a lyrical edge in spite of an open framework and textures, which encourage sonorities to surface and emerge from the band as if there was no human intention behind them. In opposition to 'Nuclear War,' Ra's organ playing here was built less on bombast and sonic terror than it is on whispers, stutters, shivers, and swells. Fireside Chat offers a wide stylistic array, as was the artist's intent, reflecting his eclectic, seemingly irreconcilable approach to compositional extremes. With Sun Ra you get everything... except predictability. First ever reissue of this iconic album!
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  • FIRESIDE CHAT WITH LUCIFER

    FIRESIDE CHAT WITH LUCIFER

    MODERN HARMONIC Nov 2020
    1 disc
    CD
    $16.49
    • CONTINUATION
    CORBETT VS DEMPSEY

    CONTINUATION

    CD · 2 discs

    $21.49
    Artist
    SUN RA
    Released
    Sep 22, 2017
    2013 release. An expanded reissue of Sun Ra's Continuation, originally released in 1970. A special two CD reissue of the hyper-rare El Saturn Records album, recorded in 1963, early in the Arkestra's New York period, paired with a full disc of extra material. Loaded with John Gilmore, one of the greatest and rarest slabs of Sun Ra vinyl, on CD for the first time. Recorded on March 10, 1963 at the Choreographer's Workshop in New York City. Remastered from the original tapes by Michael D. Anderson; Reissue produced by John Corbett and Adam Abraham.
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  • CONTINUATION

    CONTINUATION

    CORBETT VS DEMPSEY Sep 2017
    2 discs
    CD
    $21.49
    • STRAY VOLTAGE
    MODERN HARMONIC

    STRAY VOLTAGE

    CD · 2 discs

    $28.49
    Artist
    SUN RA
    Released
    Jun 27, 2025
    If you're looking for melodies, structured compositions, pleasant harmonies, songs you can whistle, and serenades for social gatherings - seek elsewhere. This is Triple-A Ra: Audacious, Aggressive, Adventurous. In the collection we've titled Stray Voltage, Ra is not so much composing music as painting soundscapes with electronic keyboards. Ra doesn't simply play these consoles - he attacks, cajoles, and pounds them. Stray Voltage compiles unissued electronic peregrinations during the 1970s and '80s.
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  • STRAY VOLTAGE

    STRAY VOLTAGE

    MODERN HARMONIC Jun 2025
    2 discs
    CD
    $28.49
    • A BLACK MASS
    GREYSCALE

    A BLACK MASS

    CD · 1 disc

    $16.99
    Artist
    SUN RA & HIS MYTH SCIENCE ARKESTRA
    Released
    Mar 10, 2017
    'A Black Mass' is an ultra rare recording of a play by Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), featuring Sun Ra & the Myth-Science Arkestra. Originally released by Jihad Productions on vinyl 1968. It has only been briefly available on CD previously and has been lovingly re-mastered. Baraka was an African-American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays and music criticism. He was the author of numerous books of poetry and taught at a number of universities, including the State University of New York at Buffalo and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His career spanned nearly 50 years, and his themes range from black liberation to white racism. Baraka's poetry and writing have attracted both extreme praise and condemnation. Within the African-American community, some compare Baraka to James Baldwin and recognize him as one of the most respected and most widely published black writers of his generation. Le Sun R (aka Sun Ra) was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his experimental music, "cosmic philosophy", prolific output, and theatrical performances. He was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1979. For much of his career, Ra led "The Arkestra", an ensemble with an ever-changing name and flexible line-up. As LeRoi Jones wrote, "Sun Ra was only musician in my mind, not just because of his otherworldliness of the tale, but the sensuous outness. I knew Ra, with his (then titled, the name changed continuously) Myth-Science Arhestra, would bring, which I felt give a material life to the text".
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  • A BLACK MASS

    A BLACK MASS

    GREYSCALE Mar 2017
    1 disc
    CD
    $16.99
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