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.
CD reissue. Sun Ra (who was born Herman Blount) was undoubtedly one of the most arcane musicians of the 20th century. He was an American Jazz composer, band leader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher, but his formal education came to an abrupt end. Sun Ra soon left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him. In 1936 or 1937, in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said: My whole body changed into something else. I could see through myself. And I went up... I wasn't in human form... I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn... they teleported me and I was down on stage with them. They wanted to talk with me. They had one little antenna on each ear. A little antenna over each eye. They talked to me. They told me to stop because there was going to be great trouble in schools... The world was going into complete chaos... I would speak, and the world would listen. That's what they told me. This album originally appeared in 1962 and includes some remarkable technical advances. While testing the tape recorder while the musicians were tuning up one day, the band's drummer and engineer, Tommy Hunter, realized that by manipulating the tape recorder in unconventional fashion, he could create sounds that nobody had ever heard before. Unless you have already booked your summer holiday on Saturn, I suggest that you buy this record to see what you are missing.
The Complete Town Hall Concert is a live album by American bassist, composer and bandleader Charles Mingus recorded at The Town Hall in New York City and first released on the United Artists label in 1962 as Town Hall Concert. The album was re-released with additional tracks on the Blue Note label in 1994 as The Complete Town Hall Concert. The concert was originally conceived as a "live workshop" of newly composed music which would be recorded for release by United Artists but rescheduling, lack of rehearsal time, poor sound and interruptions led to the event and subsequent album being considered a disaster.[3] Much of the music intended for the concert/recording was finally realized by conductor Gunther Schuller in a concert in 1989 as Epitaph.
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.
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.
'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".
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.'
