Sun Ra & His Solar-Myth Arkestra - The Solar-Myth Approach - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Enshrined in the Penguin Jazz Guide's InchCore CollectionInch, this quintessential platter of Sun Ra's late 1950s Chicago ensemble showcases the brilliant tenor sax stylings of John Gilmore, and introduces Arkestra mainstays Marshall Allen, Pat Patrick, and Ronnie Boykins. Recorded and issued in 1959, it marks a coda for the bandleader's bebop/hard-bop stage, as his interstellar traveler persona began to transform the band (and the music). Many of the early works on these recordings would remain staples in Arkestra set lists for the rest of Sun Ra's life. Includes the complete, contemporaneous Sound Sun Pleasure LP, rare stereo mixes, and bonus tracks. Album Tracks 1. Hours After 2. Horoscope 3. Images (In a Mirror) 4. Blues at Midnight 5. Enlightment 6. Saturn 7. Velvet 8. Ancient Aiethopia 9. State Street (Alternate, Unreleased) 10. Blues from Saturn (Unreleased) 11. Hours After (Single Version) 12. Great Balls of Fire (Single) 1. Round Midnight 2. You Never Told Me That You Care 3. Hour of Parting 4. Back in Your Own Backyard 5. I Could Have Danced All Night 6. Enlightment 7. Hours After 8. Velvet 9. Ancient Aiethopia 10. Horoscope (Incomplete, Unreleased)

Sun Ra was a master of misdirection. Tape boxes wrongly labeled-whether by accident or design-are legendary among Ra archivists. One can speculate about the artist's intent or carelessness, but source misinformation abounds on Ra tape cases, album jackets, cassettes, ephemera-as well as in interviews. It's as if Ra, in furtherance of his own mythmaking, wanted to keep historians guessing.This project began as a misidentified tape discovered by Michael D. Anderson of the Sun Ra Music Archive. The 7-inch reel, which contained a live Ra solo piano performance of 11 works-some recognizable, others not-was of stellar quality, and was marked as a 1979 Carnegie Hall date. But the program on the tape did not align with known facts (e.g., titles played, concert duration) which were chronicled in a Newsday review of Ra's appearance at Carnegie in September of that year. With a prod from writer/historian Ted Gioia and further research by myself, the tape was eventually identified as a mostly unreleased July 1977 performance by Ra at a downtown NYC Inchjazz caféInch called The Axis-in-Soho. Album Tracks 1. Axis Rhapsody 2. St. Louis Blues 3. Blue Play 4. Axis Nexus 5. Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child 6. Axis Entempore 7. Honeysuckle Rose - Enlightment 8. Space Is the Place 9. Axis Impromptu 10. Everything I Have Is Yours 11. At Sundown 12. June Night 13. Rumination

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. Album Tracks 1. Astro Vision 2. The Ninth Eye 3. Solar Boats 4. Perspective Prisms of Is 5. Calundronis