Sun Ra - Prophet - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

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

The monumental sessions from the Saturn legend with The Solar-Myth Approach Vol. 1 & Vol. 2, now brought together in one deluxe 2-CD set. Restored & remastered from the original tapes by Nick Robbins, this edition comes in a 6-panel deluxe digi-sleeve that echoes the vibe of both original LPs. It includes two printed inner CD wallets replicating the original LPs' front and back cover artwork, along with a 16-page booklet featuring archival musician photos and a new, insightful essay by author and jazz specialist Kevin Le GendreA Cosmic Journey Through Sun Ra's Creative UniverseThis double-CD edition celebrates the unparalleled creative energy of Sun Ra-the visionary who forged his own genre. Elevating his renowned band, The Arkestra, to the status of The Solar Myth Arkestra, the pioneering bandleader, composer, and keyboardist produced a vast body of work that could fill a universe. These sessions, spread across both discs, rank among his finest releases of the 1970s.Featuring legendary Arkestra members-including saxophonists John Gilmore, Danny Davis, and Marshall Allen; drummers Clifford Jarvis, Lex Humphries, and Nimrod Hunt; and the charismatic vocalist June Tyson-The Solar Myth Approach Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 compile an eclectic mix of tracks from various undocumented sessions in New York and Philadelphia during the 1960s. Some pieces may even date back to the late 1950s, when Ra and his Arkestra were based in Chicago.These invigorating albums showcase Sun Ra expanding Duke Ellington's big band aesthetic into uncharted territory. They reflect his deep fascination with non-Western cultures, cutting-edge electronics, and homemade instruments. Often evoking ancient ceremonies and rituals, the music reinvents the traditional theme-and-improvisation model while underscoring Sun Ra's enduring Afro-centric vision.InchThis remastered version provides the finer points of Sun Ra'

The outsized sounds emerging from the Excelsior Mill organ captured here constitute a unique chapter in the Sun Ra story, a dizzying phantasmagoria that offers a whole new view on what Ra could do. It might thrill you; it might unnerve you; it might strum your heartstrings; it might spook the living daylights out of you. Most likely you'll experience all of the above before the jolting musical jeremiad is done. The CD includes the full uncut show with music not featured on the LP version! When you're Sun Ra, you don't need synthesizers to evoke apocalyptic visions and interstellar excursions. You don't even need a band.Ra is most widely known for working with various iterations of his Arkestra, but he was no stranger to unaccompanied keyboard expeditions. His discography contains solo piano albums, solo Fender Rhodes records, and solo recordings on conventional organ, the latter going as far back as his home recordings from the 1940s. But none of those instruments ever offered Sun Ra the kind of sonic artillery that waited beneath his fingers and feet when he sat before the keyboards, pedals, and multicolored constellation of tabs controlling the Wurlitzer pipe organ. Mystic and magisterial, Ra comes off here like a cross between a demonically riffing '50s horror movie villain and a futuristic congregation leader delivering the interplanetary gospel. Brassy stabs provide the kind of punctuation that could be graphically rendered as an endless string of exclamation marks in 500-point font. String-like swoops and swirls dance across the top of the carnage, cooling the flames just enough to keep the whole thing from combusting (for a while at least) but never dousing the fiery fury that Ra draws forth from the instrument. Album Tracks 1. Beyond Hiroshima