Sun Ra Music

Sun Ra was on the bill with Paul Bley in this July 3, 1977, solo performance at Axis-in-SoHo in New York. The material includes four Sun Ra compositions and an additional three classic numbers; St. Louis Blues, Three Little Words and Honeysuckle Rose.

The artistic genius of Sun Ra blossoms through his piano interpretations, which capture his universal outlook of music as a vehicle to expand one's intrinsic knowledge. The canvas is vast, but Sun Ra paints each piece quite subtly so one does not dominate the others.

This is a nice, sweet, somewhat quirky rendition of these ballads, recorded in the mid 50s or the early 60s in a cozy quintet format (including John Gilmore on tenor); however, the entire recording comes in at exactly 30 minutes--not much when a cd holds nearly 75 minutes.
So, it comes down to whether it will be worth it to you?

there are a lot of sun ra albums that i love, and a lot of them that i cannot stand. the pretentious avant-garde ones tend to fall into the second category. this one, though avant-garde in nature, is actually very listenable. featuring a lot of fantastic sax work from john gilmore, this is a great place to dip your feet into sun ra's freaky side. the great john coltrane was a huge fan of john gilmore, and it's easy to figure out why. the compostions on this album are 'out there' in nature, but yet easy to reach with your heart. i recommend this to those with a taste for musical adventuring.

A brilliant strange album that is very spacy. This is probably not a album for old school jazz puritans, it's a album for those who want more. Sun Ra looks like his music, that is very wired, in a positive sence. He gives his musicians complete freedoom. You can hear the musicians really enjoing themselves in the way they play. A chaotic album in a chaotic world !

I am a huge fan of Sun Ra, but I don't think this album is as good as his best. There are three long sprawling tracks. It is pretty avant garde stuff and if you like the jazzier Sun Ra, as I do, then this isn't one of the better ones. If you are into avant garde you may enjoy it more than I do.

The music here has a vibe not dissimilar to that on "Lanquidity", another album currently in-print that was recorded late in a New York night during the disco age. And like that album (as well as the hard-to-find "Sleeping Beauty" and "On Jupiter") featuring an Arkestra that had some R&B roots in the ground.

The music is gentle "quiet storm" R&B with washes of sound over the top ... the recording here is clear and crisp. It's gentle groove music and there's a kind of perfection to it.

This was the first Sun Ra album I ever bought and is still my favourite. Not quite as far out as some of his 1960's material and perhaps the most accessible of his truly great works, it features a formidable late-1970's version of the Arkestra on 3 extended tracks, each of which develops beautifully and spontaneously into a spaced out mantra half way between John Coltrane's "Ascension" and Funkadelic's "One nation under a groove".

Everything about this album is totally brilliant - cosmic lyrics, freaked out solos scattered over a musical landscape always on the verge of chaos but continually steered into new directions by inspired musicians at the peak of their powers, even the artwork and OTT hype in the sleevenotes (which for once is fully justified)....

Absolutely essential!!!!!

there are a lot of sun ra albums that i love, and a lot of them that i cannot stand. the pretentious avant-garde ones tend to fall into the second category. this one, though avant-garde in nature, is actually very listenable. featuring a lot of fantastic sax work from john gilmore, this is a great place to dip your feet into sun ra's freaky side. the great john coltrane was a huge fan of john gilmore, and it's easy to figure out why. the compostions on this album are 'out there' in nature, but yet easy to reach with your heart. i recommend this to those with a taste for musical adventuring.

A brilliant strange album that is very spacy. This is probably not a album for old school jazz puritans, it's a album for those who want more. Sun Ra looks like his music, that is very wired, in a positive sence. He gives his musicians complete freedoom. You can hear the musicians really enjoing themselves in the way they play. A chaotic album in a chaotic world !

I am a huge fan of Sun Ra, but I don't think this album is as good as his best. There are three long sprawling tracks. It is pretty avant garde stuff and if you like the jazzier Sun Ra, as I do, then this isn't one of the better ones. If you are into avant garde you may enjoy it more than I do.

The music here has a vibe not dissimilar to that on "Lanquidity", another album currently in-print that was recorded late in a New York night during the disco age. And like that album (as well as the hard-to-find "Sleeping Beauty" and "On Jupiter") featuring an Arkestra that had some R&B roots in the ground.

The music is gentle "quiet storm" R&B with washes of sound over the top ... the recording here is clear and crisp. It's gentle groove music and there's a kind of perfection to it.

This was the first Sun Ra album I ever bought and is still my favourite. Not quite as far out as some of his 1960's material and perhaps the most accessible of his truly great works, it features a formidable late-1970's version of the Arkestra on 3 extended tracks, each of which develops beautifully and spontaneously into a spaced out mantra half way between John Coltrane's "Ascension" and Funkadelic's "One nation under a groove".

Everything about this album is totally brilliant - cosmic lyrics, freaked out solos scattered over a musical landscape always on the verge of chaos but continually steered into new directions by inspired musicians at the peak of their powers, even the artwork and OTT hype in the sleevenotes (which for once is fully justified)....

Absolutely essential!!!!!

there are a lot of sun ra albums that i love, and a lot of them that i cannot stand. the pretentious avant-garde ones tend to fall into the second category. this one, though avant-garde in nature, is actually very listenable. featuring a lot of fantastic sax work from john gilmore, this is a great place to dip your feet into sun ra's freaky side. the great john coltrane was a huge fan of john gilmore, and it's easy to figure out why. the compostions on this album are 'out there' in nature, but yet easy to reach with your heart. i recommend this to those with a taste for musical adventuring.

A brilliant strange album that is very spacy. This is probably not a album for old school jazz puritans, it's a album for those who want more. Sun Ra looks like his music, that is very wired, in a positive sence. He gives his musicians complete freedoom. You can hear the musicians really enjoing themselves in the way they play. A chaotic album in a chaotic world !

I am a huge fan of Sun Ra, but I don't think this album is as good as his best. There are three long sprawling tracks. It is pretty avant garde stuff and if you like the jazzier Sun Ra, as I do, then this isn't one of the better ones. If you are into avant garde you may enjoy it more than I do.

The music here has a vibe not dissimilar to that on "Lanquidity", another album currently in-print that was recorded late in a New York night during the disco age. And like that album (as well as the hard-to-find "Sleeping Beauty" and "On Jupiter") featuring an Arkestra that had some R&B roots in the ground.

The music is gentle "quiet storm" R&B with washes of sound over the top ... the recording here is clear and crisp. It's gentle groove music and there's a kind of perfection to it.

This was the first Sun Ra album I ever bought and is still my favourite. Not quite as far out as some of his 1960's material and perhaps the most accessible of his truly great works, it features a formidable late-1970's version of the Arkestra on 3 extended tracks, each of which develops beautifully and spontaneously into a spaced out mantra half way between John Coltrane's "Ascension" and Funkadelic's "One nation under a groove".

Everything about this album is totally brilliant - cosmic lyrics, freaked out solos scattered over a musical landscape always on the verge of chaos but continually steered into new directions by inspired musicians at the peak of their powers, even the artwork and OTT hype in the sleevenotes (which for once is fully justified)....

Absolutely essential!!!!!