Sun Ra in Chronological Order: An Arkestra Listening Thread + Related Solar Sounds

never heard Twilight or the Judson Hall show before

Solar Myth Approach Vol. 1 is an old favorite of mine. Adventures of Bugs Hunter! Great news about the new remasters.

this "Discipline 9" from the Judson Hall show is very pleasing, it's long and spacy. Karl asked earlier what the setlists were like, well this is the earliest example I know of - the next live things come in '66.

forgot to post before I left the house and my post is at home in a text file.

so everyone gets one more day of listening before starting 1965.

"Magic City" not on Spotify :(

Filed under "Sun Ra & His Arkestra"
https://open.spotify.com/album/4hqD5lN02dq75HeiP9TtNf?si=hHoIiEKASWOLMnM90b62LQ

we're not there yet! :D

(Heliocentric comes next, it was completed in April and Magic City wasn't finished until May)

I'm gonna go ahead and post that in an hour or two, still not home.

1965 - The Heliocentric Worlds Of Sun Ra

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Szwed:

After meeting Bernard Stollman during the October Revolution, Sun Ra asked him to come and hear the Arkestra at a loft in Newark, and once he did, Stollman quickly agreed to record them.

I don’t think Ra was quite finished with The Magic City when this session took place, so I’m starting 1965 here. I can’t pin down an actual release date for the LP on ESP, but I think it was earlier in 1965.

I was previously unfamiliar with this one, although it is one of the best known as far as I can tell. Again, lots of emphasis on percussion and space.

From the “Sun Ra Sunday” blog:

Heliocentric Worlds Vol. 1 is rightfully considered a landmark recording and belongs in every serious record collection. It has remained pretty much consistently available (either legitimately or on bootleg editions) since the day it was released and its appearance transformed Sun Ra from the obscure Lower East Side eccentric into his rightful role as the globe-trotting emissary of interplanetary music. Heliocentric Worlds, Vol. 1 is, in a word, a masterpiece, but just one of a series of extraordinary recordings that Ra would make during this period.

after my third time through, I finally realized... there isn't really a drummer here! just various members on timpani, bells, wood block, "cymbal [spiral]," and "percussion" (by Jimhmi Johnson on tracks A3 and B1 only). still lots of space, though.

1965 - The Magic City

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A personal side note: Although I think the first Sun Ra I heard was Blue Delight, this was one of the first as well, a friend gifted me the 1973 Impulse reissue back in like 1992 (it turns out that it is more of the reprocessed-stereo garbage that is typical of the Impulse reissue series, see the earlier “Black Beauty” entry). But that 1973 edition still has my favorite cover design, hey why not hotlink them both:

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Recorded in April-May (side 2) and Sept. 24th (side 1) of 1965, released as a mono LP on Saturn in 1966, repressed twice (on Saturn and “subsidiary” label Thoth) in the 60s, reissued as part of the Impulse reissue program of the early 70s, again via the Evidence CD reissues in the 90s, and now finally in a definitive 21st century stereo version (see below).

What this most reminds me of is a symphony. It is so meticulously organized (is it composed? I’m not sure), it has so many moods. Is it jazz? I guess so, but largely because of the instrumentation used to make the music. Basically, what we are hearing in these recordings is musical telepathy by people who had been playing together for years.

Obviously this record is a goddam masterpiece, but all of you absolutely need to listen to the new STEREO remaster that the Bandcamp/Enterplanetary people put out in 2017:

"With supplemental material from the original tapes, the best possible sound and detailed research, this could be the single-disc reissue of the year." — NYC Jazz Record, Oct. 2017

https://sunramusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-magic-city-cd-lp-digital

In fact, I’m just gonna C&P most of the Bandcamp writeup:

Sun Ra albums like THE MAGIC CITY prove the categorical futility of "File Under: Jazz." When assessing the post-Chicago (1960–on) work of Ra, "jazz" turns out to be less a genre than a journalistic and marketing convenience. Jazz has a glorious tradition. Sun Ra was schooled in it, emerged from it, and grew to transcend it (though he never abandoned it). Even the cheeky term "Space Jazz" cannot frame the extremes to which Ra pushed his art in the mid-1960s. In this regard, THE MAGIC CITY was a pinnacle.

1965 was a turbulent year for the Arkestra and its leader, and many consider THE MAGIC CITY a flashpoint for that upheaval. Arkestra drummer Tommy Hunter, quoted in John Szwed's 1997 Ra bio SPACE IS THE PLACE, describes a typical performance of the period: "It was like a fire storm coming off the bandstand."

On the original 1965 THE MAGIC CITY LP, issued on Saturn, the monster 27-1/2 minute title track sprawled across side A. The "Magic City" to which Ra refers was his birthplace—Birmingham, Alabama. The term was the town's motto, emblazoned on a billboard by the train station near Sunny's childhood home, intended to reflect the city's explosive growth as a Southern industrial epicenter after the discovery of iron ore, coal, and limestone deposits. Birmingham was a place about which Sun Ra felt and expressed ambivalence: an outpost of racial segregation and grim smokestack-pocked landscapes, yet a city for which he felt twinges of nostalgia and affection. (His heirs still live in the area.)

Ra customarily supervised the Arkestra's improvisational process via keyboard cues or hand signals. He was always in charge—hence critic Simon Adams describing the title track as "27 minutes of controlled freedom." "The Magic City" was never performed in concert; saxophonist John Gilmore said it was "unreproducible, a tapestry of sound."

Although shorter in scope than side A's magnum opus, the four works on THE MAGIC CITY's flip side reflect the same improvisational approach, spatiality, and lack of structure. One session outtake, "Other Worlds," an alternate version of "Shadow World," is included as a bonus track. Also included are the final 90 seconds of the mono version, which were curiously omitted from Ra's own stereo version. .

-- THE MAGIC CITY: THE DEFINITIVE STEREO EDITION --

First-generation Saturn pressings of The Magic City were monophonic. The album was reissued on CD by Evidence in 1993 with the title track in mono and the LP side B tracks in stereo. A full stereo version had been issued on Sun Ra's Thoth subsidiary label sometime after 1969; however, it suffered from a technical flaw that prevented many copies of the LP from tracking cleanly through the first cut on side B. A 1973 gatefold LP reissue on Impulse featured reprocessed stereo, and a cheap, terrible-sounding bootleg LP—on a badly replicated "Saturn" label—has circulated in recent years. For this definitive reissue, Cosmic Myth Records used stereo sources which are superior to the Thoth pressing.

The “Sun Ra Sundays” blog (recommended reading, I’m gonna try to link/excerpt going forward) also has some good notes:

Ra had been working with the material that would become “The Shadow World” at least as far back as “The Outer Heavens” (on Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow) and it appears in rough form on Sun Ra Featuring Pharoah Sanders and Black Harold (there titled, “The World Shadow”). Here, the fiendishly difficult composition gets its first complete performance. A complex unison melody for saxophones is set off against a 7/4 rhythm and Ra’s contrary, angular piano. After a brief series of solos, saxophones return with the melody while trumpet states the counter-melody originally intimated by the piano. Szwed writes: “Sun Ra took considerable pleasure from the agitated difficulty of the piece, and noted that once during a rehearsal for a French TV show the producer was so disturbed by it that he threatened to cancel the show if they insisted on playing it” (p. 215). “The Shadow World” would become a fixture of the Arkestra’s live sets going forward, often performed at impossibly fast tempos.

for some reason Magic City is one I never got around to before. Heliocentric Worlds I know v well, in contrast.

Thanks for the Magic City spotify link upthread; I was searching for the studio "Shadow World" last month but could only find the College Tour live version...? I see the 2017 version has an alternate take of "Other Worlds", from the Heliocentric sessions.

Very enjoyable thread btw, valuable info.

thank you! nice to see you in here.

also Myonga there is a Spotify playlist for the whole thread:

https://open.spotify.com/user/weinventyou/playlist/4dAK9bNAV6C8zrf9twZpk3

Thanks sleeve!

1965 - The Heliocentric Worlds Of Sun Ra Vol. 2 (and Vol. 3, and The Sun Myths)

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Moving on into 1965, remember that The Magic City hadn’t been released yet. Also, everyone should listen to it! But at this time, Heliocentric Vol. 1 had just come out and was making waves.

Recorded in November, I assume this was a followup to the relative success of the first? From the Szwed book:

As soon as the ESPs were issued, Willis Conover, a Voice of America disc jockey, began to play them nightly on his jazz show aimed at Europe, where an intensely loyal following began to develop. […]And then out of the blue Alton Abraham suddenly released a flood of Saturn records which had been recorded over the last few years - Angels and Demons at Play, Fate in a Pleasant Mood, Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow, and Secrets of the Sun.

To go along with that, here is a flood of material, three albums worth (with one long track in different versions). I am gonna dive into this stuff over the weekend.

Detailed “Sun Ra Sundays” notes on Vol. 2 are here:

https://nuvoid.blogspot.com/2009/05/sun-ra-sunday_17.html

and regarding Heliocentric Worlds Vol. 3:

In 2005, ESP-Disk’ released Heliocentric Worlds Vol.3: The Lost Tapes, purported to be unreleased material recorded at the November 16, 1965 session that produced Heliocentric Worlds Vol.2. After some close listening, I am pretty certain this date is incorrect, although some of this material might have been recorded at the April 20th session for Heliocentric Worlds, Vol.1 (but then again, maybe not). Confusing? Yes! But these are the eternal mysteries of Mr. Ra! Nevertheless, the discovery of previously unheard music from the nineteen-sixties makes this CD essential listening for the Ra-fanatic.[…]

Is it possible that Heliocentric Worlds Vol.1, side-2 of The Magic City and tracks 2-5 of Heliocentric Worlds Vol.3 were all recorded at the same session on April 20, 1965? For that matter, is it possible that When Angels Speak of Love was also recorded during this time period? NARRATOR: I don’t think so The stylistic resemblances are striking and, taken together, all of this music demonstrates how intently Ra was developing his composed improvisational approach in the mid-nineteen-sixties. Heliocentric Worlds Vol.3 adds another fascinating piece to the puzzle, yet ultimately raises more questions than it answers.

https://nuvoid.blogspot.com/2009/05/sun-ra-sunday_31.html

Then we have the alternate takes and outtakes collected on the Bandcamp release “Sun Myth (African Chant)”:

A quartet of rare 1965 tracks from the Sun Ra Music Archive. The early version of "The Sun Myth," featuring a soundtrack of African chanting underneath the Arkestra's studio performance, appeared on the first pressing of The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Vol. 2. However, the chant is absent from the more commonly known commercial mix of the title. In fact, before it was removed from the mix entirely, the chant was mixed lower on the album's second pressing; it could be heard, but distantly. On the third pressing — no chant! How it came to be included in the first place was presumably Sun Ra's decision, and anybody's guess why. The origins of the recording are unknown, and as to why it was removed — see previous sentence. No documentation has been found explaining the evolution of the respective mixes.

https://sunramusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-sun-myth-african-chant

Also note:

After the digital release of Sun Myth (African Chant) in 2016, further research affirmed that "Interplanetary Travelers" had originated from the sessions for the album The Magic City, and the track was included on the definitive Cosmic Myth Records 2017 LP/CD reissue of that classic 1965 Sun Ra title.

Over the weekend I’m gonna try and write something more about late 1965 to early 1966, there’s a lot of stuff that happened during this time frame, plus some side projects.

some listening thoughts on the last batch:

I used to have Heliocentric 2 on vinyl, but I sold it. I don't regret that after re-listening, it's a little unfocused to my ears. On the other hand, the 1st-press "Sun Myth" mix with the African chant works perfectly as an epic side-long track. Go figure. I have no idea why it was removed.

I had to skip my first track in this project, the lead track on Heliocentric 3. Horns squeal, drums flail, I get bored. But I was then rewarded with some really phenomenal small-unit tracks for the rest of the record, I actually prefer this to Vol. 2 by a wide margin.

The other outtakes from The Sun Myth are enjoyable as well, big band tracks but coherent and integrated, definitely composed, and of a piece with the Magic City sound.

My offhand top ten of the 1961-1965 NYC era would be:

Futuristic Sounds
Invisible Shield/What's New
Magic City
When Sun Comes Out
Bad And Beautiful
Heliocentric 1
Judson Hall
Other Planes Of There
Secrets Of The Sun
The Sun Myth (African Chant)

Am I going too fast for people? Let me know. I've been able to listen to everything so far at this pace. Jamming Heliocentric 3 in the hot tub with a beer is a special kind of relaxation.

"The Shadow World" is one of the most difficult Ra compositions for me to understand; it's like one of those old Magic Eye photos - I just cannot hear the melody in there unless I'm listening to the right version with the right star alignment. Honestly, about this point Ra sort of loses me until June Tyson comes onboard.

1965 - Strange Strings

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Another staggering achievement. Generally thought to have been recorded in 1966 but the newest sources say 1965 (I don’t know why, and the Bandcamp page doesn’t say, conventional wisdom was that the instruments were bought during the 1966 college tour of upstate NY and the page even repeats that detail). Again, who the fuck knows, we’re doing our best with dates here and it feels kinda right to revise this particular release in the timeline. It sure sounds more like The Magic City than it sounds like Nothing Is (from May 1966).

Released as an LP on Saturn in 1967, then languishing in relative neglect for 40 years (skipped by the 90s Evidence CD series) until a 2007 Atavistic CD reissue.

The definitive new 2014 version on Bandcamp and Spotify features an entire album’s worth of additional material. The album seems to have made quite the comeback buzz-wise from my admittedly limited vantage point. This is another sui generis exercise like the title track of Magic City, it has more in common with AMM than jazz imo.

After a series of concerts at upstate New York colleges (sic), Sun Ra purchased an arsenal of stringed instruments from curio shops and music stores on the road: ukulele, mandolin, koto, kora, Chinese lutes, and what he termed "Moon Guitars." In the studio, these were handed out to his reed and horn players in the belief that "strings could touch people in a special way." That the Arkestra members didn't know how to play these instruments was not beside the point—it was the point. Sun Ra called it "A study in ignorance." To this unconventional "string section" he added several prepared homemade instruments, including a large piece of tempered sheet metal on which was chiseled the letter "X." Art Jenkins was assigned intermittent improvised vocals.

Biographer John Szwed explains what happened next: "Marshall Allen said that when they began to record, the musicians asked Sun Ra what they should play, and he answered only that he would point to them when he wanted them to start. The result is an astonishing achievement, a musical event which seems independent of all other musical traditions and histories. The music was recorded at high volume, laden with selectively applied echo, so that all of the instruments bleed together and the stringed instruments sound as if they, too, were made of sheet metal. The piece is all texture, with no sense of tonality except where Art Jenkins sings through a metal megaphone with a tunnel voice. But to say that the instruments seem out of tune misses the point, since there is no 'tune,' and in any case the Arkestra did not know how to tune most of the instruments."

Check the extensive Bandcamp notes, apparently a double album was planned for 2018 release with even more material.

this era's all very familiar to me. Re-listened to Heliocentric World V. 2 last night - was unaware that there were so many versions of The Sun Myth (I've never heard the African chant one). Album is okay in general but nothing special.

Strange Strings otoh is something of a bizarre anomaly, just in the instrumentation. I have to be in a certain mood for that one.

1965-66 side project interlude

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Two minor side projects added to the Spotify playlist. First, the late-1965 LP by the Walt Dickerson Quartet featuring Ra on piano (and arrangements I think). Nice mellow vibraphone cocktail jazz. Then we have some excerpts from the infamous Batman cash-in LP done in January 1966 with Tom Wilson producing and including Blues Project folks, weirdly only three tracks are on Spotify but the whole album is on Bandcamp.

Ra plays organ, replacing Al Kooper himself who turned it down (the rest of his band was happy to get a check). Ra brought along Gilmore and Patrick to play sax. I love this record! It has been widely bootlegged and I have a shitty vinyl copy. NANANANANANANANA BATMAAAAAAN.

This moves us into 1966, and one of the most important things that happens in this timeframe is that the Arkestra gets a weekly gig (on Mondays) at Slug’s Saloon starting in March 1966 that would continue every Monday for the next 18 months, and on and off until 1972, resulting in ever-increasing exposure.

from Szwed:

”And the musicians came. Cannonball Adderley, Jimmy Heath, Philly Joe Jones, and Art Blakey showed up. Dizzy Gillespie came (and as Sun Ra walked past, Dizzy leaned toward him and was heard to say, “Keep it up, Sonny, they tried to do the same shit to me”). One night Art Farmer, Mingus, Coltrane, and Monk all showed up. In fact Monk came a number of times, sometimes in the company of the Baroness Nica, who continued to be a doubter.”

1966 - Nothing Is (and associated tour)

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Recorded in May 1966, released (as an edited version of a long 2-set evening) that same year as an LP on the ESP label. Reissued many times since then with ever-increasing amounts of bonus material, ending up with a double CD’s worth.

The ”1966 St. Lawrence” release on Bandcamp is, as I understand it, the first set of two, and the 2nd set was edited into Nothing Is - which is, confusingly not available via Bandcamp (the whole thing is on Spotify). It’s probably some weird rights thing with ESP, whatever. These recordings provide the most exhaustive live document of the band so far. I added the full double CD version to the Spotify playlist.

As per the Bandcamp writeup:

In Spring 1966 Sun Ra and his Arkestra embarked on a tour of five upstate New York colleges. Recorded on May 18, 1966, at St. Lawrence University, in Potsdam, NY, this illuminating collection presents the full 70-minute first set, a partial recording of the evening's second set, and some pre-concert, soundcheck rehearsal takes.

The nature of the somewhat ad hoc 1966 engineering setup prevented a best-quality audio capture, and there are technical shortcomings in these recordings. Nonetheless, this historic set offers a spectrum of the band's repertoire, arrangements, and stage virtuosity over almost an entire evening. The performance roughly coincides with the 10th anniversary of the Arkestra's debut studio sessions in Chicago, 1956. The sets include the rarely performed "State Street," as well as alternate versions of "Theme of the Stargazers," "The Exotic Forest," "Velvet," and "The Second Stop Is Jupiter." The tour reportedly included SUNY Buffalo, Syracuse University, and several other unidentified colleges.

According to longtime Ra percussionist Tommy Hunter, the Arkestra often worked with two drummers during this period. A second drummer is audible on these recordings, but he is not identified in existing tour recording documentation. Saxophonist John Gilmore suggested Roger Blank or Jimmy Johnson as the second drummer.

This is the first known live recording since the Judson Hall/Black Harold show almost 18 months earlier. There may be even more recordings from this tour (Syracuse is mentioned) but only two nights have surfaced so far - the St. Lawrence College shows (early and late) that were edited into Nothing Is, and a show in Buffalo that is partially available in physical form only (no digital anywhere that I could find) on (again) the UK-only Art Yard label - in this case a 10” vinyl record.

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This is a big chunk of sound, so I’m gonna take a break for a day or two as I only just got through re-listening to Strange Strings (which reminded me of some early Nurse With Wound and Anima as well as AMM this time around). Feel free to weigh in! We have around 125 records to go, by my rough count. So posting every few days will result in over a year of listening.

welp, that's my year, scheduled!

the year of the ear: sun ra 2020

i am enjoying the pace but am floundering a little bit. after spending so much time in the 1950-62 years, it's taking me a while to adjust to the new sounds. this thread is pretty much the #1 resource in the world (imo), a godsend

the Walt Dickerson and Batman records are great palate cleansers if you're burned out on the skronk :)

Yeah, love hearing anomalies like those or the doo-wop tracks pop up on the Spotify playlist during shuffle.

Been listening to said playlist for days now; it's wonderful hearing a decade's worth of evolution laid out in the proper chronology.

1966 - Monorails And Satellites

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A nice conceptual and musical break here. Sun Ra piano solo albums are quite rare in the overall discography, and this is the first example to surface. Recorded in 1966, the first volume was released as an LP on Saturn in 1973, and the second volume in 1974. Volume Three was only released last year in January (almost 53 years after the original recordings) as part of a complete set.

As per Bandcamp:
A tape of a third, unreleased volume was discovered posthumously by Michael D. Anderson of the Sun Ra Music Archive. Released here for the first time, it consists of five originals and four standards, and was recorded in stereo.

Bandcamp also sez:

The playing here speaks less of a style, and more of a collection of statements. Some of the tunes, with their odd juxtapositions of mood, could be mistaken for silent film scores. Perhaps they were audio notebooks, a way to generate ideas which could be developed with the band ("I think orchestra"). Regardless of any secondary (and admittedly speculative) intent, they serve as compelling standalone works. The fingering reflects Sun Ra's encyclopedic knowledge of piano history as his passages veer from stride to swing, from barrelhouse to post-bop, from march to Cecil Taylor-esque free flights, with a bit of soothing "candelabra" swank thrown in. Sunny's attack is mercurial, his themes unpredictable. His hands can be primitive or playful, then abruptly turn sensitive and elegant. As with the whole of Sun Ra's recorded legacy, you get everything but consistency and predictability.

The listener also experiences something rare in the Sun Ra recorded omniverse: intimacy. His albums, generally populated by the rotating Arkestral cast, are raucous affairs. With the Monorails sessions, we eavesdrop on private moments: the artist, alone with his piano. These are brief audio snapshots of what was surely a substantial part of Sun Ra's life, infinitesimal surviving scraps of 100,000 hours similarly spent, most lost to posterity.

These compositions do seem meandering sometimes, but they have a nice flow. Improvised? Aside from “Easy Street” and the tracks on Volume Three, it would appear so. From “Sun Ra Sundays’:

While Sun Ra is highly regarded as a pioneer of electric keyboards in jazz, his prodigious gifts as a pianist have largely been overlooked, obscured by and subsumed within the Arkestra’s overall musical activities. Monorails and Satellites is one of the very few solo piano recordings Ra ever made and it is a fascinating document of his instrumental technique and singular musical thinking. Ra does not possess a dazzling virtuosity, but he approaches the piano as an immense orchestra, full of vibrant colors and contrasting timbres. Like a child at play, Ra delights in the resonant rumbling of the lowest octaves and the plinking, chattering chimes of the highest notes above. But Ra’s two-hand independence is sometimes truly astonishing: each hand in a different meter, in a different key, ten fingers layering multiple outer and inner melodies to create complex rhythmic/harmonic webs. Ra’s touch is aggressive yet supple, achieving illusionistic “bent” note effects.

https://nuvoid.blogspot.com/2009/07/sun-ra-sunday.html

From that same link:

Ra’s discography gets very confusing at this point, with various albums containing material recorded at different times and places, with a slew of singles thrown in to boot. This sort of confusion continues until well into the nineteen-seventies!

Yep, that will become very clear with the next entry…

Welcome back, earthlings. If your ears are weary of major statements like 2-hour college sets or triple LPs of solo piano, how about some sketchbook collections of “inside” performances harking back to the Chicago era?

1966 - Pictures Of Infinity a.k.a Outer Spaceways Incorporated (referred to here as POI) and Outerspaceways Inc. a.k.a A Tonal View Of Tomorrow Vol. 3 a.k.a. Spaceways (referred to here as “Spaceways”)

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It now becomes clear that full engagement with the Sun Ra discography is like reading the Necronomicon, it drives people to madness. Here’s the “Sun Ra Sunday” entries for these two “albums” (really a collection of random tapes, afaict), I’m including them both, even with repetitive parts, because it gives you the full clusterfuck picture (also, they have different and relevant bits of info). This guy gets really frustrated! I don’t blame him.

for “Pictures Of Infinity”:

This is yet another record with a horribly tortured history. In 1971, Sun Ra sold a stash of tapes to Alan Bates of the German label, Black Lion, who shortly thereafter issued this album under the title, Pictures of Infinity. A 1994 CD reissue added a previously unreleased bonus track (“Intergalactic Motion”) and all cuts were again reissued in 1998 on the three-CD box set, Calling Planet Earth (Freedom 7612), but there the album is stupidly re-titled Outer Spaceways Incorporated. I say stupidly because a 1974 album originally titled Outer Spaceways Incorporated (Saturn 14300A+B) was also re-issued in the same box set and inexplicably re-titled Spaceways, thereby creating all kinds of unnecessary discographical confusion. Be that as it may, this album (whatever its title) is drawn from an excellent stereo recording of a live performance in New York City circa. 1968 and provides a rare, hi-fi glimpse of the newly evolving “cosmo drama.”
https://nuvoid.blogspot.com/2009/09/sun-ra-sunday_27.html

(Keep in mind that these recordings have now been dated to 1966 - this blog entry is from 2009)

for “Outerspaceways Inc.” a.k.a “A Tonal View Of Times Tomorrow Vol. 3” a.k.a. “Spaceways”:

This record certainly has a tortured discographical history! In December, 1971, Sun Ra sold a cache of tapes to the Black Lion label so as to pay the Arkestra’s traveling expenses from Denmark to Egypt. Sadly, much of this music was never released. In 1974, El Saturn released this album as Outer Spaceways Incorporated (143000A+B) – although it was sometimes entitled A Tonal View of Times Tomorrow, Vol.3. Inexplicably, some of this music also appeared on numerous hybrid pressings of later Saturn albums such as Primitone and Invisible Shield among others. Finally, in 1998, the German DA Music label released a three-CD box set entitled Calling Planet Earth (Freedom 7612), containing some (but not all) the Black Lion holdings, wherein this album is stupidly re-titled Spaceways. I say stupidly because another disc in this otherwise fine box set is inanely titled Outer Spaceways Incorporated, making an already confusing discography needlessly opaque. This is the kind of thing that makes Campbell and Trent’s Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra so absolutely necessary!
https://nuvoid.blogspot.com/2009/07/sun-ra-sunday_12.html

The upshot of all of this is that YET ANOTHER hybrid version of these two recordings has been released as the Bandcamp version of Pictures Of Infinity (added to Spotify playlist). This does not have side 1 of the original Pictures Of Infinity LP, but it does have “The Wind Speaks” and “Outer Space (sic) Incorporated/We Travel The Spaceways” from Spaceways (i.e. about half of THAT album).

Confused yet? Me too! I’m not even gonna try to figure out where the other FIVE tracks on the new Bandcamp version came from. They say 1966, that’s good enough for me. Another lovely little curveball I had to sort out is that two of the “Spaceways” tracks have been retitled on the reissue versions (see below).

Regarding the music, the Bandcamp notes cover it pretty well:

In the mid-1960s, Sun Ra's commercial recordings and performances were reflecting new musical directions, many representing extreme departures from his Chicago (1956–1960) and early New York (1961–1963) approaches to jazz. Such albums as Other Planes of There (1964), The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra (volumes 1 & 2; 1965), The Magic City (1965), Strange Strings (1966), and Atlantis (1967) pushed beyond the conventions of structured, beat-driven jazz to challenging frontiers. To many ears, they were no longer "inside" jazz at all. Rather, they were "outside"—groundbreaking musical forms that transcended categories. In jazz circles, this side of Ra sparked controversy, gaining him many allies, while losing others.

The 1966 recordings in this set, however, are largely "inside," and demonstrate that during this period Ra didn't abandon his jazz roots (in fact, he never did). These titles, many dating from his Chicago and early New York years, represent an updating of Sun Ra's early catalog (with some new titles). The playing is loose, but structured, and Sun Ra's featured soloists get ample opportunities to stretch out. Call it "harder bop.”

So at this point, we are missing the first track on side 1 of the original POI, the 15-minute “Somewhere There,” which is inexplicably greyed out on Spotify in the US. It is, however, on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw1zLHflWp4

The 2nd track on POI side 1, yet another version of “Outer Spaceways Incorporated,” has been added to Spotify since it IS available in the US on one of the digital POI reissues.

The “Spaceways” LP has been reissued in its entirety physically, but not digitally aside from the two tracks on this new POI version. I couldn’t find those dual-titled tracks (“Chromatic Shadows” a.k.a. “Prelude And Shadow-Light World” and “The Satellites Are Spinning” a.k.a. “We Sing This Song”) on Youtube (sigh/wtf/shrug).

Aside from one other (very interesting) entry yet to come, this brings us to the end of 1966. The Arkestra was continuing to play at Slug’s every Monday, building their following. I wanted to excerpt this bit from the Szwed book as it provides some context for the globetrotting that was to come (see also: the bit upthread about the radio DJ in Europe).

“…Tam Fiofori, a Nigerian poet-writer who had come to New York in 1965 by way of London […] was beginning to write about the Arkestra in underground or arts publications […] He had attached himself to the Arkestra, and he could often be seen at work at the typewriter in The Sun Palace or traveling with the band. More than anyone else, Fiofori made Sun Ra known internationally. And he ambitiously drew Sun Ra deeper into the world of avant arts.[…] But Sonny was not about to let Fiofori or anyone else be his interpreter: “For three years (Fiofori) wrote down everything I said, publishing it all over the world, but he didn’t hear any of it.”

ZING!

One more note on this time period, as per Szwed, regarding 1966-67:

“Again a great number of records were released that had been previously recorded: Sun Ra Visits Planet Earth, Rocket Number Nine, We Travel The Spaceways, and When Angels Speak Of Love. And along with them […] Sun Ra’s first solo piano recordings.” (i.e. the previous week’s “Monorails” set)

I think the version of "Outer Spaceways Incorporated" on Pictures of Infinity was my first exposure to that song, still probably my favorite. Great set.

1966 - The Ankh And The Ark - Sun Ra and Henry Dumas in conversation

The last thing we have from this year. Recorded at Slug’s Saloom in 1966, a 24-minute conversation between the poet/writer Dumas and Sun Ra. Meandering but fascinating. And what the heck is that background music?

Added to Spotify, available on Bandcamp as well along with detailed and fascinating liner notes:

https://sunramusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-ankh-and-the-ark

1967 - Atlantis (side 2)

https://img.discogs.com/l8JmmgMEjOqQqNFV52zoZ8WdDh0=/fit-in/500x500/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-1026849-1304464717.jpeg.jpg

Another stunner, but this LP is the first of (I assume) several that will be split up since different tracks were recorded at different times. Side 1 isn’t until September of 1968, side 2 (added to the playlist) was recorded at the Olatunji Center of African Culture, 125th Street, New York, August 4, 1967.

In terms of what was happening in Sun Ra world“It took almost seven years for the Village Voice to notice Sun Ra, but in 1967 jazz critic Michael Zwerin dropped into Slug’s to hear his band. […] nothing he had ever heard prepared him for what he saw that night.” (Szwed, followed by a lengthy description of the Arkestra in full freak flower).

Szwed quoting Zwerin’s review: “Sun Ra’s music is pagan, religious, simple, complex, and almost everything else at the same time. There is no pigeon-hole for it. It is ugly and beautiful and terribly interesting. It’s new music, yet I’ve been hearing it for years.”

Earlier in April, the Ihnfinity Inc. corporation was founded by Ra, Alton Abraham, and others as some kind of umbrella organization which I’m still not totally clear on.

The LP itself was released in 1969 on Saturn, and later part of the Evidence CD series. The new Bandcamp version corrects some Side 1 issues (to be covered later) and is remastered. Bandcamp sez:

“Atlantis" is an overpowering—and at times frightful—assault which refuses to coalesce into any conventional structure, and augurs Sun Ra's increasingly adventurous performances in the 1970s. The keyboards used were a Clavioline and a Gibson Kalamazoo Organ (which Ra re-christened the "Solar Sound Organ"). During this performance, according to biographer John Szwed, "Sun Ra rolled his hands on the keys, pressing his forearm along the keyboard, played with his hands upside-down, slashing and beating the keyboard, spinning around and around, his hands windmilling at the keys—a virtual sonic representation of the flooding of Atlantis." It is an uncompromising work by an artist unafraid to challenge his audience. The original 45-minute performance was projected for a full album, running across two sides. However, it was edited to fit onto one side of an LP, and is here presented in its commercially released form. A release of the complete recording is in our project queue.

45 minutes?!?!?

Sun Ra Sundays says:

The side-long title track was recorded live at the Olatunji Center of African Culture sometime after May, 1967 and is essentially one long Ra solo on the other new keyboard in his arsenal: a Gibson Kalamazoo organ. The Kalamazoo was a lower-priced copy of the Farfisa portable organ made famous by rock musicians of the time (think “96 Tears”). Ra attacks the instrument with unrelenting, two-fisted zeal, summoning forth a tsunami of sound that duly evokes the mythical flooding of Atlantis. It is a hair-raisingly terrifying performance and as menacingly psychedelic as any music of the period. After about fifteen assaultive minutes, an eerie calm sets in and the Arkestra plays an aching, moaning, richly voiced ensemble passage while Ra’s screeching organ threatens to overwhelm. The tension continues to mount until it is almost unbearable – then suddenly Ra cues the space chant: “Sun Ra and his band from outer space have entertained you here…” Holy moly! As Michael Shore puts it in his liner notes on the Evidence CD, “Atlantis” is “frightening, fascinating, enthralling, and finally overpowering music…(It) is one of the most monumental achievements of an artist who was always working in super-colossal terms.”

1967 loose ends: “The Invisible Shield” and “The Bridge/Rocket #9” 7” and the unavailable “Cosmo Dance”

https://img.discogs.com/lLE1JtHdu5SkWohiP7UuTIKIkAY=/fit-in/600x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-6713009-1501167532-1631.jpeg.jpg

We touched on “The Invisible Shield” previously in this thread:

man the title track is definitely from later, there were no synths like that in the early 60s

― Οὖτις, Friday, February 7, 2020 9:34 AM (three weeks ago)

It’s interesting hearing this in the proper context as it is an appropriate companion piece to Atlantis.

Also recorded this year (there are relatively few recordings available for 1967 compared to most other years) was a rare 45 on Saturn, not released until 1982 (!!!).

“Cosmo Dance”, listed for this year in the Szwed discography and also not released until many years later (1979) on a rare late-period Saturn pressing, was also *probably* recorded this year. The record it appears on, “Song Of The Stargazers”, is otherwise made up of live 70s tracks and has yet to be reissued. The Sun Ra Sundays writeup sounds tasty - unfortunately I couldn’t find the track on Youtube.

Song of the Stargazers (Saturn 487 or sometimes 6161) was released in 1979 and is mostly a hodgepodge of various live recordings from the nineteen-seventies. But one track was obviously recorded much earlier, probably in 1967 or 1968, according to Prof. Campbell. Performed in a large, reverberant space in front of a sizable and enthusiastic audience, “Cosmo Dance” is an interesting quasi-modal composition featuring some evocative flute and oboe. Clacking wooden sticks set up a simple, repetitious rhythm with Boykins's bass and Pat Patrick’s “space lute” plucking out a droning three-note groove. Low horns and bowed bass enter with convulsively heaving whole-note fourths while flute and oboe and bass clarinet dance a medieval round. Flute and then oboe embark on expansive, Middle-Eastern sounding solos over the clacking sticks and throbbing bass/space lute, the audience bursting into spirited applause after each. Finally, the low horn/bowed bass whole-note fourths return, repeating several times before ending to more justifiably hearty ovation. Ra himself is not heard playing on this track, but the murky sound quality makes it hard to clearly make out who is doing what. Campbell says Marshall Allen is playing both flute and oboe, but that is impossible since both instruments are heard simultaneously during the ensemble section. So, is it Danny Davis on flute? It certainly sounds like him. There is also some talking barely audible throughout – is that Sun Ra lecturing the crowd or just random audience noise? In any event, this is a beautiful, prototypical Sun Ra composition of the period, perfectly realized by his Arkestra.

In other 1967 news:

“The Arkestra meanwhile had picked up a part-time manager, Lem Roebuck, who had gotten them concerts in the parks, sometimes with as many as thirty musicians, through Simon Bly, a man who staged musical events […] Roebuck had seen a singer and dancer in Bly’s series of outdoor musicals who, he told Sun Ra, would broaden his appeal. So Roebuck talked June Tyson into coming to a rehearsal […] She helped liberate Sun Ra from the keyboards, and made it easier for him to come to the front of the band[…]”

I’m not gonna quote TOO much more of the Szwed book at this point but suffice to say that June Tyson and her fellow singer/dancer Verta Mae Grosvenor (hired right after June was) brought a whole new dimension to things:

“June Tyson and I integrated the band,” Grosvenor said, “and we had to develop roles which fit the Arkestra. So we decided to be space goddesses.”

1967-68 - Solar Myth Approach (part 2) and A Black Mass

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2481139000_10.jpg

https://img.discogs.com/e8649Rre1edu7DqtzQY83plptKM=/fit-in/450x451/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-1961188-1304249721.jpeg.jpg

Most of the Solar Myth Approach tracks are believed to have been recorded in this time frame, and have been added to the Spotify playlist (a few others come later, in 1969 and 1970, you can peek ahead at the detailed Bandcamp notes if you want).

https://sunramusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-solar-myth-approach-vol-1

We also have a recording of a play that Szwed says was recorded in 1966 with Amiri Baraka, but was released on LP in 1968. I’m not sure of the exact details, info is sketchy.

“A Black Mass” was reissued once on CD but isn’t officially available at the moment. However, it is on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=oi98wfZyqpU&feature=emb_logo

ok, i dug up my copy of "cosmo dance" from the record and it is indeed a very fine thing... here's a quick little temporary sendspace of it:

https://www.sendspace.com/file/mmu55h

thanks!!

1968 (or earlier) - Continuation (Volumes 1 and 2)

https://img.discogs.com/PctFBVZ2q_DATDNSdWl_yyp0jWI=/fit-in/350x342/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-4653215-1371158552-2343.jpeg.jpg

Continuation (Vol. 1) was originally released as a rare LP on Saturn in 1970, and the origins of the tracks have been debated ever since. As usual, Bandcamp has the definitive version, including a 2nd disc of sessions originally released in rough form on the Corbett Vs. Dempsey label as part of a reissue.

The first track (ya gotta love the title “Biosphere Blues”) is a lovely stroll through older stylings, muted trumpets suggesting Louis Armstrong and older motifs, broken up by a more modern rambunctious sax. I don’t think many of these became Sun Ra “standards” so it’s interesting to hear these tracks for the first time (I’m ashamed to admit that I do have a Scorpio reissue of Vol. 1 on LP, but haven’t actually listened to it).

By the next track, “Intergalactic Research”, we are in full freak mode and the agonized groans and zombie shuffle tempo almost reminds me of the Viennese Aktionists. Weird shit. Percussion heavy, again, that’s one of the things I’m coming to appreciate the most as I work through the catalog this way, re-listening or first-listening as appropriate. Even his keyboard playing has a rhythmic surety to it.

Then we have a different version of “Earth Primitive Earth” (covered upthread under the weird Space Probe B-side Art Yard release) and a Bandcamp exclusive complete version of the track “New Planet”.

The B-side is all one track, as per Bandcamp:
The LP side-length "Continuation to Jupiter Festival" was reportedly recorded live at a club called The East, in Brooklyn, but there's no indication of an audience, including during quiet passages and after exciting solos; the constrained ambience of the track indicates a studio setting. Danny Ray Thompson, as reported by Campbell-Trent, "has a recollection ('not 100 percent') of performing this piece at The East." Indeed it could have been performed—but perhaps not recorded—there. Robert Barry is credited as drummer, but the aggressive stickwork (as Campbell and Trent note) sounds like Clifford Jarvis.

Sun Ra Sundays thinks this track is from 1969, but who knows. Also note: “The presence of Tommy Hunter and his echo-echo-echo machine on “Earth Primitive Earth” and “New Planet” makes me think these tracks were recorded prior to 1968. In fact, the overall ambience (and massively increased hiss) sounds like some of the Choreographer’s Workshop recordings (but this might just be wishful thinking).”

https://nuvoid.blogspot.com/search?q=continuation

(added to Spotify)

Bandcamp on Vol. 1:
Several authorities believe studio tracks 1 thru 4 were recorded in 1968, but "Biosphere Blues" sounds as if it were recorded in the early 1960s at the Choreographer's Workshop. That location (and the year 1963) was cited on a limited-pressing Corbett vs. Dempsey CD of the album, linking it with early 1960s recordings which appeared on Secrets of the Sun and Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow. In 2014, Campbell-Trent offered a reconsideration: "normally dated 1968-69, but on stylistic grounds an earlier date is likely for these tracks."

The personnel listed below contains a slew of maybes. Based on the knowns and probables, as well as the sounds and instrumentation, Continuation closely reflects Sun Ra's album Atlantis, which was recorded in September 1968. In fact the Gibson Kalamazoo ("space") organ and the Hohner clavinet on "Intergalactic Research" are also heard on Atlantis, and Sun Ra did not use either in the early 1960s (the Hohner wasn't introduced until 1964).

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0507721803_10.jpg

Bandcamp on Vol. 2:
Continuation 2 would surprise Sun Ra, because he never released any such album. Around 1970 he did release Continuation, a limited-pressing LP of recordings whose origins have confounded experts. The Robert Campbell-Christopher Trent discographic atlas, The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra (2nd edition, pub. 2000), provides some guidance on personnel, but the citations contain many question marks. Several authorities believe these sessions date from 1968 or '69, yet they echo recordings made in the early 1960s at the Choreographer's Workshop. That location (and the year 1963) was cited on a limited-pressing Corbett vs. Dempsey 2CD set of Continuation, linking it with early '60s recordings on Secrets of the Sun and Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow. In 2014, Campbell-Trent offered a reconsideration: "normally dated 1968-69, but on stylistic grounds an earlier date is likely for these tracks."

Sun Ra Archives Executive Director Michael D. Anderson, who transferred these tracks from undated master tapes, insists they originate from '63 and were recorded at CW. That venue was a longtime Arkestra rehearsal space and ad hoc recording studio, a residency that began shortly after their 1961 arrival in NYC following the formative Chicago years.

The recordings on Continuation Vol. 2 (all in full stereo) feature small ensembles of between six and eight players, typical of CW recordings from the early '60s. At the time, Sun Ra was working largely with musicians who had come east with him, along with a handful of New York recruits. One of the few clues that argues against CW is the absence of the harsh warehouse acoustics characteristic of the Workshop basement. These recordings have a warmer studio feel, though they still reflect a low-rent setting.

So, I’m convinced. It seems that a lot of these tracks (especially the Vol. 2 ones) should have come earlier in the playlist, in the CW era, but I’ll leave them here. The record starts out normal with “Blue York” (I love it), and then gets seriously out on the next two tracks, swerving back into sedate cocktail hour with “Ihnfinity”, then percussive cosmic weirdness for a couple of tracks, then an early version of “Next Stop Mars”.

Please chime in if you have any thoughts on this music. I’m gonna start assuming that everyone here has read John Swzed’s “Space Is The Place” and go from there.

never even heard of these before!

1968 - Atlantis (side 1) and the “Blues On Planet Mars” 7”

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https://img.discogs.com/8HwyCAGj8yiUHtveCzWRKNivH18=/fit-in/600x594/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-14438349-1574863079-4262.jpeg.jpg

Side 1 of Atlantis and the two tracks on this single were all apparently recorded in September 1968. The LP (including side 2 discussed earlier) was released on Saturn in 1969. Then it was reissued in 1973 as part of the ill-fated Impulse program (with a truncated “Part 2” of the track “Yucatan” called “Yucatan II” substituted for the original Part 1), later reissued in original form as part of the Evidence series. The single itself is extremely rare, although a 1-sided version with just the A-side is more common (and released much later).

A lot of this is percussion-centered, percussion-only, or electric keyboard & percussion duets. Good stuff. The definitive Bandcamp version includes both parts of “Yucatan”:

https://sunramusic.bandcamp.com/album/atlantis

Could there be a better time than "strictly enforced social distancing" to bone up on my Sun Ra?!?! Whenever we go back to classes, I need to start my unit on jazz so heeeeeeyo -- thanks for the monumental effort of this thread!

I have read parts of Space is the Place (and have it) and know this-and-that about Sun Ra, but haven't ever focused super intently on his output. I saw the Arkestra on NYE a few years ago.

Hi LL! Nice to see you in here, please enjoy the amazing tunes!

Atlantis is epic but not one of my favorites tbh

apparently Danny Ray Thompson just passed :( RIP

Saw that. He had also played in DC funk/ proto-go-go band Black Heat

1968 - loose ends

STOP THE PRESSES! We have something to add in that we missed, released on vinyl by the US label Roaratorio. A set from May 1965 (!!):

https://www.discogs.com/Sun-Ra-His-Astro-Infinity-Arkestra-Other-Strange-Worlds/release/5457402

Not on Spotify, but the album is on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxxnXYC8iLw

There’s also track from Spaceways with June Tyson, mentioned earlier, recorded around ’68 that fits in here.

And then we have the first five tracks from Roaratorio’s album “Sun Embassy”:

https://www.discogs.com/Sun-Ra-And-His-Astro-Ihnfinity-Arkestra-Sun-Embassy/release/11599231

https://img.discogs.com/oJUV2ygx7W6sZr_DS1uzrF46LqQ=/fit-in/600x598/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-11599231-1519179330-2201.jpeg.jpg

These were recorded at various times in 1968, and have been added to the Spotify playlist. The last two will come in ’69.

This closes out 1968. As mentioned, Danny Thompson just died, at this point in the Szwed book it is noted that he had become the Arkestra’s de facto manager around this time.

Never even heard of these

they're new! Roaratorio released four albums in the last 5-6 years, all previously unreleased stuff.

so hard to catch up with this stuff! didn't get far with "other strange worlds", just sounded like a "strange strings" variation to me. i'm enjoying "cosmic strut", sounds sort of a ra-ified take on the "sanford and son" theme!

1969 - My Brother The Wind (Vol. 1)

https://img.discogs.com/CmiorZWim85ZPqdf1rg0bq1S-8I=/fit-in/600x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-3351406-1326923289.jpeg.jpg

Blasting off to outer space on the Moog rocket, these tracks were all recorded on the new instrument in 1969, and released as an LP on Saturn in 1970. It was repressed a couple of times in the 70s, then ignored for almost 30 years, then there were two Scorpio LP pressings in the 00s, and finally a definitive 2017 Bandcamp version (added to Spotify).

From the Bandcamp page:

The original My Brother the Wind LP on Saturn (catalog 521) featured four tracks, properly sequenced here on as tracks 1–4. For this expanded release, tracks 5–7 feature three complete session takes of "The Perfect Man." The third and final complete take was issued in 1974 on Side B of Saturn 45 rpm single ES 537, reissued in 1983 on Saturn 9/7474, and included on the Evidence 2-CD set The Singles in September 1996. The alternate takes have not been previously issued.

Track 8 features the monumental "Space Probe," a solo Moog work recorded around the same time—and possibly performed on a Minimoog. This track was originally released in 1974 on the Saturn LP Space Probe, which appeared in a number of hybrid configurations during the 1970s. On at least one iteration, taped to the generic back cover was a typewritten card which claimed "Space Probe," described as a "moog (sic) solo," had been "recorded in Chicago, 1960's"—a fanciful claim at best.

The Sun Ra Sundays writeup is here:

https://nuvoid.blogspot.com/2009/08/sun-ra-sunday_16.html

This one is, uh… not really my thing, although it sure is adventurous.

I forgot one thing from 1968 - at the end of the year, the Arkestra moved to Philadelphia, where they would remain (more or less) for the rest of Sun Ra’s life.

1969 - Solar Myth Approach (two* tracks), Sun Embassy, The Intergalactic Thing
* - see below

https://img.discogs.com/r06mzyv_SlrnmET2a51r2OZBkl4=/fit-in/600x592/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-8493754-1462720148-3302.jpeg.jpg

Welcome back, my distanced friends. The perfect antidote for boredom and isolation, more Sun Ra!

I fixed the end of the playlist, some of the Solar Myth Approach and Sun Embassy tracks got out of order. Regarding the Solar Myth Approach tracks, please allow me this long Bandcamp excerpt:

The historical context of two other tracks merit reevaluation. The solo Moog synthesizer tracks "Seen III, Took 4" (Vol. 1) and "Scene 1, Take 1" (Vol. 2) are listed in The Earthly Recordings as being performed on a Minimoog. Ra acquired a Mini prototype in 1970—the year the instrument was developed—from Bob Moog himself and took it on tour. The prior year Ra had visited Gershon Kingsley's New York studio and recorded on Kingsley's modular Moog; those recordings were issued on Saturn in 1970 as the album My Brother the Wind. We asked Brian Kehew, a Moog historian (who wrote liner notes for the 2017 deluxe reissue of My Brother the Wind), to review the two Solar-Myth tracks and identify which instrument Ra played. His reply: "Sure sounds UN-like a Minimoog and VERY like the modular system. Ra plays a wider range on the keyboard than you could on a Minimoog. It's the longer keyboard of the modular system." As it turns out, on both volumes of Solar-Myth, Ra credits himself with playing "Moog synthesizer" — not the Mini. So in this one instance, it seems Ra was on the level.

But that's not all. According to Anderson, "Scene 1, Take 1" was recorded at the tape speed of 3-3/4ips, but for the original BYG LP it was—for reasons unknown—played back at 7-1/2ips. Hence, that track has always been heard at double speed. If you listen closely, at two seconds in there's a momentary voice which is clearly sped-up. The 3-3/4ips tape is too fragile for Anderson to run, but Kehew was able to convert the digital file to true speed. On this version, at four seconds in, you can hear the voice of Sun Ra at normal pitch. It's conceivable that Ra made the creative decision to speed up the piece for the album—although we cannot rule out engineer error. At any rate, here the original LP version remains as track #3 in the Vol. 2 sequence, and the true-speed version, which reflects what Ra's hands actually played, has been included on this remastered digital edition of Vol. 2 as a bonus track. (The way BMG acquired the tapes (covered previously)…) increases the likelihood of "engineer error" causing the incorrect speed of "Scene 1, Take 1," as well as explaining the incongruous stylistic mix of these two albums.

So far, aside from the newly-unearthed Sun Embassy tracks, all we’ve heard so far this year is Moog solos. The “slower” i.e. correct-speed version of “Scene 1 Take 1” is kind of a revelation, I think I prefer it to “Space Probe.”

The other major revelation of this sparsely-documented year isn’t available online at all that I could find, another Roaratorio vinyl-only release (a double LP) of previously-unreleased studio sessions from Philly called The Intergalactic Thing.

https://www.discogs.com/Sun-Ra-His-Astro-Ihnfinity-Arkestra-The-Intergalactic-Thing/release/8493754

This seems like the first truly major thing we’ve encountered that isn’t available for listening! I wanna hear it! The 1969 Sun Embassy tracks are quite good, particularly the funky keyboard workout on “Cosmic Strut.”

Notably, although The Intergalactic Thing says “Recorded August - November 1969, Sun Studios, Philadelphia, PA,” June Tyson is not credited. That will change very soon.

i gotta say i'm really enjoying "the intergalactic thing", absolutely my jam. there's another version of "saturn moon" which is a b-side of his i love, not to be confused with "moon over saturn" which is a different piece. this is a recording of the arkestra at their best, worth seeking out, thank you for bringing it to wider attention!