Sun Ra – El Is A Sound Of Joy! (1968/2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Sun Ra – El Is A Sound Of Joy! (1968/2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 47:42 minutes | 413 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © RevOla

Shining sounds from the dawn of the Sun Ra Arkestra. ‘El is A Sound of Joy’ was recorded in 1956 and appeared the following year on the very first Saturn LP, Super-Sonic Jazz. Incredible is the fact that saxophonist Charles Davis, here providing the soulful baritone anchor line (counterpoint to Sun Ra’s formidable left hand), remains in the front-line of today’s Sun Ra Arkestra directed by Marshall Allen. Shuffle swing breakdown jets leisurely, casually, masterfully, painting lush, post-modern impressions of ancient future worlds, of space, of time… of Chicago’s elevated trains… Reaching for the sky, for Joy… The Joy coda dovetails magically into the intro theme of ‘Black Sky And Blue Moon’, before downshifting into another dimension of romantic outrospection. We follow The Nu Sounds, aka Cosmic Rays, on a faraway journey to the land of late-50s Chicago singing groups, the Arkestra supporting with quiet grace, pulsing in Nubians of Plutonia mode. An uncanny blend of antique blackness and bright satellites, ethereal voices perfectly in tune; thanks to Ra’s disciplined coaching (plus Modern Harmonic’s expert remastering), their sweet dynamics and exact harmonics are crystal clear. Flute solo from Marshall Allen. Hearts swelling like the full moon, ripening in the darkness to the point of bursting.

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Sun Ra & His Arkestra – Unity: Live at Storyville NYC Oct 1977 (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Sun Ra & His Arkestra – Unity: Live at Storyville NYC Oct 1977 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:25:00 minutes | 936 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Sun Ra Music

Recorded live at Storyville jazz club, New York, October 24 & 29, 1977. Quite simply one of Sun Ra’s best live albums. This rare recording (originally on Horo records) finds Ra, along with a 19-piece Arkestra, playing a mix of his own compositions (‘Images’ and ‘Lights’) along with several jazz standards (including Jelly Roll Morton’s ‘King Porter Stomp’ and Duke Ellington’s ‘Lightnin”). While Ra’s own compositions were usually more avant-garde affairs, he always revelled in playing the classics as well in an effort to give his audience a lesson in jazz history.”

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Sun Ra Arkestra – Sound Sun Pleasure!! (1970/2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Sun Ra Arkestra – Sound Sun Pleasure!! (1970/2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 47:58 minutes | 364 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © RevOla

“Sound Sun Pleasure” is a good, fairly conventional set of 6 tracks, mostly other writers’ material, well-recorded and played by an Arkestra that has a very tight and very beautiful reed section at work, trafficking primarily in low tones (provided in part by Pat Patrick’s baritone sax). Female vocalist Hatte Randolph sings on the majority of tracks. The session is not unlike the similarly lush and conventional “Holiday For Soul Dance”.

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Sun Ra & His Arkestra – Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Beyond Saturn) (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Sun Ra & His Arkestra – Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Beyond Saturn) (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 49:34 minutes | 567 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Enterplanetary Koncepts

As live, late-1970s Sun Ra albums go, Somewhere Over the Rainbow is a cut above. It’s similar to and contemporaneous with The Soul Vibrations of Man and Taking a Chance on Chances, two live sets also issued on Saturn in 1977 (and available in our remastered digital catalog).

Tape was not available, but we worked from a solidly transferred, clean 1977 Saturn LP (catalog #7877). As with many limited-release Saturn pressings, Somewhere Over the Rainbow offers exciting performances and solos preserved with dollar-store acoustics. Audio restoration can’t add what the gear didn’t capture—e.g., you can’t “remix” the balance of instruments recorded with ad hoc mic placement—but these tracks here benefit from digital cleanup and sonic improvements (including phase correction, an issue with a number of Saturn releases).

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Sun Ra and His Intergalactic Research Arkestra – It’s After the End of the World (1970) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Sun Ra and His Intergalactic Research Arkestra – It’s After the End of the World (1970)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 49:42 minutes | 916 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © MPS

This album was recorded at a series of Sun Ra appearances at jazz festivals in Germany in 1970 and stands as a documentation of jazz history; with an unusual instrumentation, Sun Ra’s avant-garde 21-piece big band creates noises and percussive sounds that are out of this world.

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Sun Ra – When Angels Speak of Love (1966/2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Sun Ra – When Angels Speak of Love (1966/2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:07:53 minutes | 634 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Cosmic Myth Records

Originally issued back in 1966 ‘When Angels Speak of Love’ shows Sun Ra and his ever-morphing Arkestra on top ‘out’ form, as he plays gong and pianoforte against cavernous echo effects which become yet another instrument in his repertoire. The liner notes comment on how conscious he was that his music wasn’t ‘free’ (‘because nobody is free’), but you’d be forgiven for lumping this in with Albert Ayler and such other greats of free music. It’s odd but in the last twenty years we’ve seen Sun Ra increasingly mentioned when talking about psychedelic music and when listening to a record as open minded and exploratory as ‘When Angels Speak of Love’ it does indeed transcend the jazz genre and become something else entirely, maybe having more in common with psychedelic or progressive rock than one might usually think. Sure Sun Ra was on his own plain, doing things his own way, but his compositions and improvisations have had so much influence on the genres we are now obsessed with – Sunburned Hand of the Man, Vibracathedral Orchestra, No Neck Blues Band, it would be hard to imagine any of these guys without the great Sun Ra having pioneered the sound early on. A gorgeous collection of still extraordinary and totally out-of-time music…

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Sun Ra – Solo Keyboard Minnesota 1978 (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Sun Ra - Solo Keyboard Minnesota 1978 (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz] Download

Sun Ra – Solo Keyboard Minnesota 1978 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:10:14 minutes | 677 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Enterplanetary Koncepts

Sun Ra presented quite a few solo piano shows between 1977 and 1980 in the US and Europe, and several have been issued commercially. From a solo keyboard standpoint, it was one of Sunny’s most prolific periods. At each gig he customarily offered three categories of works: 1) Tin Pan Alley standards he had revered since his pre-Chicago days (e.g. “Over the Rainbow,” “Don’t Blame Me,” and “Honeysuckle Rose”); 2) Ra originals, though he drew from a limited selection of his voluminous catalog (“Love in Outer Space” seemed obligatory); and 3) improvisations, perhaps a blues, which sometimes included stray riffs from categories 1 and 2.
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Sun Ra – Ra To The Rescue (1983/2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Sun Ra – Ra To The Rescue (1983/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 47:56 minutes | 540 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Modern Harmonic

Ra to the Rescue is one of the rarer albums in the Sun Ra canon. There’s a reason, and it has nothing to do with quality content (or lack thereof). When Ra and his business partner Alton Abraham launched their pioneering independent Saturn label in Chicago in the late 1950s, and on thru the 1960s—by which time Ra had moved to New York—each new album was carefully curated, titled, packaged with a printed, illustrated sleeve, and promoted in ads and catalogs.

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Sun Ra – Prophet (2022/2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Sun Ra – Prophet (2022/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 50:45 minutes | 919 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Modern Harmonic

Featuring what may be his only recordings on the Prophet keyboard, these once lost performances expand the omniverse of Ra across a stellar set of lengthy cuts! All recorded in a single day and finally making their terrestrial debut!

What happens when a Prophet meets a Prophet? The answer lies within these grooves.

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Sun Ra – Omniverse (1979/2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Sun Ra – Omniverse (1979/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 50:52 minutes | 529 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Modern Harmonic

Omniverse, recorded in New York in 1979 and released that year on Sun Ra’s Saturn label, has been gathering dust for too long. It’s a fine, overlooked item in the vast Ra catalog. The tracks aren’t so much compositions as they are excursions, with only a few memorable themes or recurring motifs. It’s pure jazz, somewhat “inside” (for Sun Ra), with little of the aggressiveness and confrontation for which the bandleader was known. (Track 5, “Visitant of the Ninth Ultimate,” is an exception.) Omniverse is a very intimate album, offering lots of reflective piano in trio, quartet, and quintet settings, with spare horns. But instead of exhibiting a keyboard showcase, Sun Ra engages in dynamic interplay with the rhythm section. Moreover, the horns are featured largely as soloists; there are few ensemble passages.

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Sun Ra – Haverford College, Jan. 25th, 1980 (Solo Rhodes Piano) (2019/2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Sun Ra – Haverford College, Jan. 25th, 1980 (Solo Rhodes Piano) (2019/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:00:11 minutes | 584 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Modern Harmonic

This Sun Ra 1980 solo set has been kicking around the internet and in the digital libraries of Ra collectors for years. It has not previously been commercially released, nor has there been any (known) diligent attempt to upgrade the fidelity. We’ve taken action on both counts.

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Sun Ra – Celestial Love (1984/2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Sun Ra – Celestial Love (1984/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 48:11 minutes | 511 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Modern Harmonic

Celestial Love contains recordings made in September 1982 at New York’s Variety Studios, which had hosted countless Sun Ra sessions since the late 1960s. This was one of the last extended sessions at Variety, and these recordings were the last studio works released on Sun Ra’s own Saturn label (though the label did continue to press concert recordings, and new studio recordings did appear on other labels). Aside from their inclusion on Celestial Love, tracks from these sessions landed on the albums A Fireside Chat With Lucifer and Nuclear War. Since Nuclear War’s contents overlapped with both Fireside Chat and Celestial Love, we have reconstituted the latter two as complete albums, thus covering all titles from these Variety dates.

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Sun Ra – Astro Black (1982/2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Sun Ra – Astro Black (1982/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 40:55 minutes | 778 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Modern Harmonic

Astro-Black mythology, astro-timeless immortality! Astro Black has long been known as a cornerstone of the Ra catalog. It is well recorded, features a superb Arkestral lineup, and successfully combines several of the styles in which Sun Ra orbited, from Saturnic jazz to astro-funk.

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Sun Ra – A Fireside Chat With Lucifer (1983/2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Sun Ra – A Fireside Chat With Lucifer (1983/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 38:32 minutes | 411 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Modern Harmonic

An F-bomb saturated hip-hop call & response club cut…from Sun Ra?! While the most renown track in this omniversal opus is the atomic expletive-filled repartee “Nuclear War,” there is so much more to this dark mysterious journey through the mind of Sun Ra. The sprawling, suite-like 20-minute title track sustains a lyrical edge in spite of an open framework and textures, which encourage sonorities to surface and emerge from the band as if there was no human intention behind them. In opposition to “Nuclear War”‘ Ra’s organ playing here was built less on bombast and sonic terror than it is on whispers, stutters, shivers, and swells. Fireside Chat offers a wide stylistic array, as was the artist’s intent, reflecting his eclectic, seemingly irreconcilable approach to compositional extremes. With Sun Ra you get everything… except predictability.

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Sun Ra – Jazz in Silhouette (Expanded Edition) (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Sun Ra – Jazz in Silhouette (Expanded Edition) (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:44:34 minutes | 892 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Cosmic Myth Records

“In tomorrow’s world, men will not need artificial instruments such as jets and space ships. In the world of tomorrow, the new man will ‘think’ the place he wants to go, then his mind will take him there.”
— Sun Ra, Jazz in Silhouette album notes (1959)

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