Jazz Articles about Sun Ra

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Sun Ra and His Space Arkestra: What Planet Is This?

by John Eyles
March 13, 2006

It is appropriate that this double album is being released by Leo Records' Golden Years imprint. Recorded in New York in July, 1973, it features as large an Arkestra as any that Sun Ra put together and includes all of his key collaborators. What Planet Is This? comes from the crucial period when Sun Ra had progressed from cult status to wider recognition, a process aided by a strange alliance with the MC5. But unlike the '50s and '60s (which ...

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Sun Ra: Nothing Is...

by Rex Butters
November 14, 2005

ESP's welcome reactivation continues with this reissue of Sun Ra's Nothing Is. The 1966 live recording has been resequenced to the set list's playing order, and it includes newly discovered performances. The improved package offers a more intimate look at one of Ra's most attractive ESP sessions.

A dramatic build deflates to cubist Harlem with Sun Ra's piano solo intro to the opening “Sun Ra & His Band From Outer Space. Following the chant, the Arkestra blooms in sound and ...

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Sun Ra: The Immeasurable Equation

by AAJ Staff
October 9, 2005

Sun Ra: The Immeasurable Equation The Collected Poetry and ProseJames L. Wolf and Hartmut Geerken, co-ed. Waitawhile ISBN: 3833426594 2005 “In his poems, as much as his music, Sun Ra seemed to want to undo and rewrite every concept he could get his hands on. The words of co-editor and Library of Congress member James L. Wolf (the co-editor being German writer/ percussionist Hartmut Geerken) show his ...

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Sun Ra: Heliocentric Worlds Vol. 1 & 2

by Rex Butters
September 4, 2005

ESP's reissue series matches two classics on one disc, Sun Ra's Heliocentric Worlds, Vol. 1 & 2. These two 1965 sessions feature the Arkestra playing out, but mostly in small units, and rarely with the quirky humor often in evidence on Ra recordings. This space seems more intimate and introspective than some other galactic narratives in the discography. While the music here sounded like incomprehensible free jazz to critics living in the age of the Beatles and Herman's Hermits, Ra ...

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Sun Ra: Nothing Is...

by Jerry D'Souza
August 6, 2005

In 1966 Sun Ra performed a series of concerts sponsored by the New York council of Arts which were released as Nothing Is. The tunes were sequenced for LP release, but now, after extensive research, more material from the concert which took place at the St. Lawrence University in Potsdam, New York has been unearthed and made its way to CD. The extensive playing time of that medium has been put to welcome use with the addition of the last ...

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Sun Ra: Heliocentric Worlds Vol. 3

by Mark Corroto
May 21, 2005

Have pity on the poor Sun Ra music collector. You see, those who “do research" on a single artist like Duke Ellington, Sonny Blount, or John Coltrane spend years and countless dollars chasing one thing, like a heroin addict who can never find a high as good as the first time. Those of us who had an audience with the great Sun Ra are never (let me repeat, never) able to duplicate that live concert experience on record, try as ...

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The Sun Ra Arkestra: Music for the 21st Century

by Rex Butters
November 2, 2004

As one would hope from a release claiming certified lineage to the source, Music for the 21st Century finds the Sun Ra Arkestra still playing swing mechanique, angular outside freestyle, comet tail cold, and overheating from inward friction. Its indomitable goodwill intact and glued to the blues, the Ark still flies on a supply, the interdimensional navigations hand-carved by astro alto Arkestra alumni Marshall Allen. The octogenarian returns the ship to the rougher rides of earlier times, zipping through tight ...