Sun ra

Sun Ra is better known to most as a musician than a poet, but he identified equally as both. My Words Are Music provides direct access to the sentiments of a poet who never called Earth home. The spoken word album hosts an inspired array of artists who personally chose their favorite Sun Ra poems to recite. Freed from the page, his poetry acquires an unexpected simplicity and poignance it possessed all along.

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.

Universe in Blue, a collection of undated live club performances by Sun Ra & His Blue Universe Arkestra, was issued in small-run pressings with two different LP covers on Sun Ra's Saturn label in 1972. Until now it has never been officially reissued on LP or CD.

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.

Strut present the definitive edition of Sun Ra’s classic ‘Lanquidity’ album from 1978 with brand new 4LP box set and 2CD editions, featuring the widely distributed version of the album alongside alternative mixes by Bob Blank originally released in limited quantities for a 1978 Arkestra gig at Georgia Tech. Both versions of the album are cut loud at 45 rpm over 2LPs each.

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.

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.

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).

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).

Over than 50 years ago, born Herman Poole Blount, the ex-Fletcher Henderson pianist changed his name to Sun Ra and formed an “Intergalactic Research Arkestra”. The avant-garde big band, which also incorporated elements of Duke Ellington and Count Basie, divided the jazz world. 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.