I need an idiot's guide to Sun Ra...

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Everything I read is how strange and out-of-the-ordinary he is, but everything I've heard sounds like regular jazz. What are his best albums? Best places to start? Which are the weirdest?

― John Mark, Friday, 6 May 2005 00:39 (twenty years ago)

Weirdest: Nothing Is, Heliocentric Worlds vol 1&2, Atlantis, Disco 3000

BEST: Atlantis, The Singles

― roger, Friday, 6 May 2005 00:50 (twenty years ago)

haha i dunno what you'd think if you picked up the singles first though. its pretty amazing.

― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Friday, 6 May 2005 00:52 (twenty years ago)

as in a lot of it sounds like nothing you'd find in the rest of his catalogue.

― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Friday, 6 May 2005 00:55 (twenty years ago)

The Singles is clearly the best. I mean, there are few things better by ANYbody. Some of it will give you your 'weird' fix, but some of it is weird in new and spectacular ways you very well might now be quite ready for.

― roger again, Friday, 6 May 2005 01:20 (twenty years ago)

shit, almost forgot - also check out the Nuits De La Fondation Maeght 2XCD (sold seperately) (and Ayler's too)

― roger once more, Friday, 6 May 2005 01:22 (twenty years ago)

I recommend the soundtrack to Space is the Place as a great overview (not the Impulse disc with the same title though that's great too). The 2-fer CD of Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy and Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow is also a good starting point. Weirdest is a hard call. Watch the Space is the Place DVD and that should give you a good taste.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Friday, 6 May 2005 01:27 (twenty years ago)

Search & Destroy: Sun Ra
Sun Ra - give me a can't miss album to get started
Fave Sun Ra tune

― RS_LaRue (RSLaRue), Friday, 6 May 2005 01:30 (twenty years ago)

Sun Ra questions of this sort tend to produce very little consensus. I don't like very much regular jazz, but I do like Sun Ra, for what that's worth. Maybe you're expecting something so weird and different that you can't help but be disappointed? The period of the most experimentation was the 60s and 70s.

― RS_LaRue (RSLaRue), Friday, 6 May 2005 01:38 (twenty years ago)

point of nerddom: three days ago I dubbed the soundtrack of the newly released 'The Magic Sun' DVD into Pro Tools and burned the 17 minute track onto a new CDR of 'Strange Strings' as a bonus track

― milton parker (Jon L), Friday, 6 May 2005 02:15 (twenty years ago)

On a side note, is this pronounced Sun Rah or Sun Ray?

― Mike F, Friday, 6 May 2005 03:05 (twenty years ago)

sun ra is really boring. watch sesame st. i have and have heard heliocentric worlds i a& ii, the magic city, cosmic tones for mental therapy, the futuristic sounds, supersonic jazz, and art forms of dimensions tomorrow. it all sucks. it's all boring. check out miles, mingus, and coltrane.

― art blakey, Friday, 6 May 2005 03:29 (twenty years ago)

You heard Heliocentric Worlds, Magic City, etc. on Sesame St.?

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Friday, 6 May 2005 04:41 (twenty years ago)

"art blakey" (as opposed to Art Blakey the drummer) sucks.

The Singles is HARDLY rep. of his catalogue. There's lots of weird-ass R&B/blues songs.

― Lethal Dizzle (djdee2005), Friday, 6 May 2005 05:23 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, I have lots of Sun Ra albums and pretty much never listen to "The Singles."

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Friday, 6 May 2005 05:25 (twenty years ago)

this is a great beginner collection.

― Lethal Dizzle (djdee2005), Friday, 6 May 2005 05:35 (twenty years ago)

milton you fucker is that a taunt?

send to me immediately.

― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Friday, 6 May 2005 06:26 (twenty years ago)

Sun Rah Rah Rah!
There is no representative "best album"--the general rule is the longer the tracks, the better the Sun Ra record.

― Douglas (Douglas), Friday, 6 May 2005 07:08 (twenty years ago)

i like the 70's live albums.

― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Friday, 6 May 2005 07:38 (twenty years ago)

"art blakey"? this troll sounds more like inspector blakey off On The Buses!

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 6 May 2005 08:02 (twenty years ago)

There is no representative "best album"--the general rule is the longer the tracks, the better the Sun Ra record.

I don't agree.

― RS_LaRue (RSLaRue), Friday, 6 May 2005 10:18 (twenty years ago)

(with the latter part)

― RS_LaRue (RSLaRue), Friday, 6 May 2005 10:25 (twenty years ago)

no me either.

so there!

― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Friday, 6 May 2005 10:26 (twenty years ago)

Yeah!

― RS_LaRue (RSLaRue), Friday, 6 May 2005 10:37 (twenty years ago)

Guess that settles that.

― RS_LaRue (RSLaRue), Friday, 6 May 2005 10:38 (twenty years ago)

There is no representative "best album"--the general rule is the longer the tracks, the better the Sun Ra record.

I don't agree with this either. And I have never heard this bandied about as some kind "rule", even among the Ra freaks I know. *Especially* not among the Ra freaks I know, I should say.

― Stormy Davis (diamond), Friday, 6 May 2005 10:39 (twenty years ago)

so...there!

― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Friday, 6 May 2005 10:45 (twenty years ago)

so name ttr fave sshort sunny tracks. singles excepted. maybe.

― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Friday, 6 May 2005 11:04 (twenty years ago)

Out There a Minute has oodles.

― RS_LaRue (RSLaRue), Friday, 6 May 2005 11:10 (twenty years ago)

Too many!

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 6 May 2005 11:11 (twenty years ago)

... but for a for instance, what about Side 1 of "Angels and Demons At Play": Tiny Pyramids; Between Two Worlds; Music From The World Tomorrow; Angels And Demons At Play. Pretty groovy!

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 6 May 2005 11:13 (twenty years ago)

Angels & Demons at Play has lots of them, yes. And Fate in a Pleasant Mood/When Sun Comes Out.

― RS_LaRue (RSLaRue), Friday, 6 May 2005 11:14 (twenty years ago)

I just sent someone a Sun Ra mix this weelk actually. (She was curious after seeing me go on about him, and she had borrowed Atlantis from her library a while back. I wanted to give her a different introduction. I don't even like Atlantis myself.) I started off with a live 80s swing tune (with a fair amount of craziness thrown in), "Angel Race/I'll Wait for you" and then "Celestial Road." She liked those two but said something about some of the other material being tedious. Of course, there's a reason I put those two first: one would be recognizable as swing and the other is kind of funky in a way, or has some sort of connection to funk anyway. I think I relied too much on Out There a Minute. Also, in my attempt to avoid anything too chaotic, I think I ended up including too many slow numbers, which often end up deforming melody in their own way (the tendency to use horns as drones in the Cosmos version of "Interstellar Low Ways" for instance).

― RS_LaRue (RSLaRue), Friday, 6 May 2005 11:26 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, Sun Ra definitely has a case of Miles Davis syndrome, only even worse than Miles'. What I mean by that is that he had a long, very diverse career and it's entirely possible to love some parts while feeling others are a complete waste of time. You can't easily overview either one's material in a bite-size dose, you pretty much have to listen to a dozen or so different albums released over the course of decades to understand the whole thing. Miles at least is pretty linear and therefore is easily packaged as a narrative. Sun Ra even confounds that because some of his most out material is right alongside real traditional stuff - and in my opinion the quality stays extremely high for both!

That said, this Idiot's guide to Sun Ra would definitely include "Sun Song" "We Travel the Spaceways" "Purple Night" and "Out There a Minute."

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Friday, 6 May 2005 12:36 (twenty years ago)

I think Purple Night is o.p. I've heard good things about it, but never heard it myself.

― RS, Friday, 6 May 2005 13:48 (twenty years ago)

I'll post it on my shared gmail sometime this weekend, then.

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Friday, 6 May 2005 14:18 (twenty years ago)

We NEED to talk about how great/hilarious "The Perfect Man" is!!!! Perfection in song, that's what I say. The drumming is so funny.

― deej., Friday, 6 May 2005 15:22 (twenty years ago)

I think it would be hard - maybe impossible - to find a single CD that would sum up the different sides of Sun Ra. A nice introduction might be to get a representative selection from different styles/periods. I'd suggest:

"Supersonic Jazz" - One of his earliest albums - a lot of this is fairly inside jazz, but with enough of a weird slant to it that you know it's Sun Ra. Some really beautiful electric piano and swingin' big band stuff. One of my most-played Sun Ra albums.

"Heliocentric Worlds Vol. 1" - This is some of the most concentrated, modernist, least-jazz-sounding Sun Ra albums. Mostly shorter tracks - very focussed, kind of reminds me of Webern.

"Sunrise in Different Dimensions" - This is a well-recorded Swiss live date from the late '70s featuring a somewhat stripped down version of the Arkestra that pushes Ra's piano playing to the fore. The selection on the CD is a combination of out-there originals with uniquely skewed takes on jazz standards like "Round Midnight".

― o. nate (onate), Friday, 6 May 2005 15:36 (twenty years ago)

That version of "Round Midnight" appears to be available as a free mp3 download on Amazon if you want to try a taste:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000001YSJ/104-0700834-6078354?v=glance

I haven't listened to it to confirm that it is indeed the same one.

― o. nate (onate), Friday, 6 May 2005 15:40 (twenty years ago)

the weirdest/"most out" stuff I've heard has been "The Solar Myth Approach" (Volumes 1 and 2) and the live 70s shows on John Sinclair's label. But I've been focused pretty much exclusively (so far) on Ra's late 60s/early 70s period, as that was the stuff I was most curious about.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 6 May 2005 15:47 (twenty years ago)

"The Solar Myth Approach" (Volumes 1 and 2) - not all weird or out-there by any means

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 6 May 2005 15:49 (twenty years ago)

well they both have several long stretches of nothing but Sun Ra making funny noises w/his Moog/ring modulators/etc. = qualifies as weird to me.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 6 May 2005 15:56 (twenty years ago)

by way of comparison, Roger up-thread cited Nothing Is and Heliocentric Worlds as being the weirdest but those always struck me as fairly subdued.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 6 May 2005 15:59 (twenty years ago)

In answer the the pronunciation question: it's "Rah" although apparently back in Chicago some people called him "Sun Ray" (after a popular manufacturer of ovens, or something like that).

― RS, Friday, 6 May 2005 16:14 (twenty years ago)

I think the first stage name he adopted was Sunny Ray which later morphed into Le Sun'r Ra or something weird like that before eventually settling into the form of Sun Ra. (his real name of course being Blount!)

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Friday, 6 May 2005 17:30 (twenty years ago)

y'know, really you should just read Space is the Place and that will make you want to hear pretty much everything.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 6 May 2005 17:33 (twenty years ago)

the first one i ever heard was Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy. it must've been right after he passed away, and i heard about it on MTV News, of all things. and so from this perspective, it seems like the place to start. though i should autobiographically add that the first jazz cd i ever bought was John Coltrane's OM, and i thought jazz was purt weerd. these days i go more for stuff like We Travel the Spaceways, Interstellar Low Ways, Bad and Beautiful, Fate in a Pleasant Mood, if i reach for Ra at all.

but CTFMT has the flummoxing blat of Gilmore and Patrick horns, oddly-shaped structures, Ra's first forays into heavily reverbed recording(sometimes just for its own sake, to hear hand drums turned into flippers to swim through the thick waters), and of course, these alien forms of beauty. it'll make you or break you.

― Beta (abeta), Friday, 6 May 2005 19:13 (twenty years ago)

bump - Purple Night isn't up yet, but I should have it available tomorrow.

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Saturday, 7 May 2005 23:40 (twenty years ago)

http://ilx.p3r.net/searchresults.php?board=86&mode=threads&q=&titlepart=sun+ra&name=&email=&username=&dateafter=&datebefore=&catid=all

― broken down (noisemeltdown), Saturday, 7 May 2005 23:52 (twenty years ago)

Some of Purple Night is too big for gmail, so I put it on ysi instead.

>1 Journey Towards Stars

>2 Friendly Galaxy

>3 Love In Outer Space

>4 Stars Fell On Alabama

>5 Of Invisible Them

>6 Neverness

>7 Purple Night Blues

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Sunday, 8 May 2005 16:44 (twenty years ago)

Goddamn it - hopefully it'll work this time

1 journey towards stars

2 friendly galaxy

3 Love In Outer Space

>4 Stars Fell On Alabama

>5 Of Invisible Them

>6 Neverness

>7 Purple Night Blues

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Sunday, 8 May 2005 16:53 (twenty years ago)

MOTHERFUCKER!

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Sunday, 8 May 2005 16:53 (twenty years ago)

Goddamn it - hopefully it'll work this time

1 journey towards stars

2 friendly galaxy

3 Love In Outer Space

4 Stars Fell On Alabama

5 Of Invisible Them

6 Neverness

7 Purple Night Blues

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Sunday, 8 May 2005 16:55 (twenty years ago)

I think it's okay, finally.

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Sunday, 8 May 2005 16:56 (twenty years ago)

Thanks. I'm very happy I'm going to get to hear this.

― RS_LaRue (RSLaRue), Sunday, 8 May 2005 20:29 (twenty years ago)

Random question -- Why does Atlantis sound so bad in comparison to the rest of his albums?

― Mike Copeland, Monday, 16 May 2005 02:15 (twenty years ago)

Do you mean in terms of audio quality or artistic quality? I don't like it much myself, though a lot of people obviously do.

― RS_LaRue (RSLaRue), Monday, 16 May 2005 02:17 (twenty years ago)

Whoops, I can't believe I didn't clarify that. I mean in terms of audio quality. I like it quite a bit.

― Mike Copeland, Monday, 16 May 2005 02:36 (twenty years ago)

Well, at least part of it was actually taped in the Ra residence. (Don't the liner notes talk about that? Assuming you have a copy with liner notes and everything.) But lots of his recordings have kind of dodgy sound, which is one reason I thought you might not be talking about the lo-fi quality. Have you heard many of the other CDs reissued on Evidence?

― RS_LaRue (RSLaRue), Monday, 16 May 2005 03:04 (twenty years ago)

No, honestly I've only heard his major releases...Futuristic Sounds, Atlantis, Space is the Place, Nuclear War. Perhaps a couple others.

― Mike Copeland, Monday, 16 May 2005 03:44 (twenty years ago)

Most of the Evidence reissues are from Sun Ra's Saturn label, and some of them were originally just home recordings.

― RS_LaRue (RSLaRue), Monday, 16 May 2005 11:27 (twenty years ago)

Jazz in Silhouette - This was my first purchase. Love it.
It's not one of the "OUT THERE" albums he did.

― meister, Monday, 16 May 2005 12:43 (twenty years ago)

If you can find the album that Sun Ra did with Ted Nugent, you're onto a winner. Nugent somehow manages to drown out the whole Arkestra by himself.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 16 May 2005 12:49 (twenty years ago)

just saw the remastered/reissued '66 Phill Niblock film "The Magic Sun," great b/w abstract with Ra's music. o.nate's selections above pretty much hit it, for me--I have come to appreciate Ra's piano-playing recently, though. He was pretty damn good.

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Monday, 16 May 2005 19:00 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...

Interesting article in the Times today about Marshall Allen and the Sun Ra Arkestra:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/30/arts/30sunr.html

― o. nate (onate), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:26 (twenty years ago)

I wish someone with some real money would support them.

― RS (Catalino) LaRue (RSLaRue), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:53 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, I was also thinking how great it would be if that Sun Ra house got turned into a proper museum.

― o. nate (onate), Thursday, 30 June 2005 14:16 (twenty years ago)

ten years pass...

Long time no sun...

A 4-hour radio documentary series about Sun Ra's life has been broadcast by Radio New Zealand Concert:

http://www.radionz.co.nz/concert/programmes/sun-ra

The whole thing can be streamed online worldwide afaik. As a total newcomer to his work, I would describe this series as "good".

― flyingtrain (sbahnhof), Wednesday, 22 July 2015 19:50 (ten years ago)

ten years pass...

New doc ,’Sun Ra: Do The Impossible’ out on 20th Feb https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpZOcDPjV20

― Dan Worsley, Sunday, 1 February 2026 08:18 (two days ago)

And this came up on my recommendations, soon after watching the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGfNMttI1Sw

― Dan Worsley, Sunday, 1 February 2026 08:34 (two days ago)

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