Jazz Articles about Sun Ra

Sun Ra: Nuclear War

by Derek Taylor
August 1, 2001

Apocalyptic in title, but surprisingly upbeat in sound this 1980s Arkestral artifact makes a welcome return to circulation through John Corbett's Unheard Music Series. The album is actually yet another off mark entry in Ra's occasional bid for major label backing. He shopped the session to Columbia, but met with the usual blank stares from the record execs and eventually sold the session to British independent label Y. Quickly dropping out of sight and circulation the vinyl edition has since ...

Sun Ra: Nuclear War

by Mark Corroto
August 1, 2001

Creative music fans always somehow end up at Sun Ra’s musical doorstep. Either they follow the rock scene and are tipped off to him by Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth and the Beastie Boys or they are established jazz fans and his name crops up in discussions of jazz music from the 1950s through the early 1990s. Somehow Sonny Blount has effected the last fifty years of music, but his recordings were (seemingly from the beginning) collectors items. His self-produced ...

The Sun Ra Arkestra Meets Salah Ragab: In Egypt

by Robert Spencer
November 1, 1999

Sun Ra enthusiasts take note: there are 36 minutes of the Man from Saturn and his Arkestra on this disc - the length of a good LP in the old days. Plus, how can any Saturnian resist the lure of a Ra disc recorded in the shadow of the Sphinx herself, right in Cairo? Top it off with 33 more minutes of Salah Ragab and the Cairo Jazz Band, and you've got a real treat.

This is Ra in 1983 ...