Jazz Articles about Sun Ra

About Sun Ra

Album Review

Sun Ra: Space Is The Place (Music From The Original Soundtrack)

Read "Space Is The Place (Music From The Original Soundtrack)" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
July 10, 2023

The outlandish persona Sun Ra created and maintained for himself over the years may sometimes distract from the adventurous intent of the music he made. Yet it is testament to his vigorous loyalty to both the music as means of communicating his cosmic ideology and the basic tenets of his unconventional means of creativity that neither theme intruded dangerously upon the other during the course of his sixty-some year career. In a fittingly limited edition run (for both ...

Album Review

Sun Ra & His Intergalactic Solar Arkestra: Space Is The Place (Music From The Original Soundtrack)

Read "Space Is The Place (Music From The Original Soundtrack)" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
June 7, 2023

Do not expect The Criterion Collection to reissue the 1974 film Space Is The Place anytime soon. It is though, a cult classic in the truest sense of the word. Sun Ra and his Arkestra had been at the forefront of avant-garde music, developing and refining his vision since the 1950s. Today listeners are most likely acquainted with Ra's claims of being from Saturn and his mission to save our doomed planet. Back in the late 1960s and early 70s ...

Liner Notes

Sun Ra at Inter-Media Arts, 1991

by Howard Mandel
March 25, 2023

On April 10, 1991, the night of this concert at Inter-Media Art Center in Huntington, Long Island, Sun Ra was near the apogee of his earthly transit. Having led his transformative iterations of his Arkestra around the globe for an unlikely if not unimaginable four decades, the visionary composer, keyboardist, conceptualist and cosmologist was, even though in recovery from a stroke, at the peak of his powers, two years from breaking free of his local orbit entirely. He ...

Jazz and the Net

Artificial Intelligence and All About Jazz? DIG 9000 jams with ChatGPT

by Kurt Ellenberger
March 2, 2023

As the internet's oldest jazz resource, All About Jazz (AAJ) has always been on the cutting edge of using new technologies in the promotion of jazz and jazz musicians. This commitment continues to this day with the new technology that has emerged in recent months, namely, the so-called “Artificial Intelligence" (AI) known as “ChatGPT" that has created such a stir in the media and in education in particular. AAJ has experimented with AI for content creation and the ...

Just For Fun

Sun Ra's Cosmic Wardrobe

by AAJ Staff
March 2, 2023

Sun Ra was a musician, composer, and bandleader who was known for his innovative approach to jazz and his unique personal style, which often included elaborate costumes and otherworldly stage props. Sun Ra believed that he was from Saturn and was sent to Earth to spread a message of peace, harmony, and creativity. One of the reasons why Sun Ra wore costumes was to create a visual representation of his belief in the power of imagination and the ...

Album Review

Sun Ra: The Futuristic Sounds Of Sun Ra - 60th Anniversary Edition

Read "The Futuristic Sounds Of Sun Ra - 60th Anniversary Edition" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
October 10, 2022

Produced by Tom Wilson, the same man who also helmed recordings by the Mothers of Invention, Bob Dylan and the Velvet Underground, The Futuristic Sounds Of Sun Ra may belie its title when described as one of the most accessible titles in his lengthy discography. Nonetheless, like its concert companion piece, At Inter-Media Arts, April 1991 (Modern Harmonic, 2016), the relatively concise approach overseen by its famous studio supervisor can reasonably function as the gateway into that vast universe of ...

Radio & Podcasts

The Space Station Jazz Program

by David Brown
August 23, 2022

In a time before astronauts and cosmonauts explored the space beyond our planet, jazz musicians were already there. In the '50s reference to space in album titles, graphics and song titles equated the music with the modern. This is still true today as space is a place for exploration in jazz. This week, let's jump around the Jazz Continuum and explore some space together. Playlist Thelonious Monk “Esistrophy (Theme)" from Live at the It Club-Complete (Columbia) 00:30 Dinah ...