Sun Ra

One of Sun Ra's greatest albums of the 70s – recording during the same sessions that yielded the famous Space Is The Place record for Blue Thumb, and done with a very similar feel – an expansive configuration of the Arkestra in peak form!

The range of expression is really incredible – from the spiritual soul jazz of "Pan Afro", to the lightly grooving June Tyson vocals of "Neptune", to the extended suite "Discipline 27-II", a stretched-out spacey number with vocal "dramatizing" by Ra, Tyson, Ruth Wright, and Judith Holton. That track's a particularly great one, with the kind of spiritual resonance behind the spacey approach that rarely comes through as strongly on other albums – but the whole set is wonderful, and judging how reminscient of it some of the best, similarly-minded underground jazz is decades later – the whole thing is an amazing testament to how strong Ra's influence is today.

PERSONNEL:

• Sun Ra - (piano, space organ [Farfisa], Minimoog)
• Akh Tal Ebah - (trumpet, flugelhorn, vocals)
• Lamont McClamb [Kwame Hadi] - (trumpet, percussion)
• Marshall Allen - (alto sax, flute, percussion)
• Danny Davis - (alto sax, flute, alto clarinet, percussion)
• Larry Northington - (alto sax, conga, percussion)
• John Gilmore - (tenor sax, drums, vocals)
• Pat Patrick - (tenor sax, baritone sax, flute, electric bass, vocals)
• Danny Ray Thompson - (baritone sax, flute, percussion, vocals)
• Eloe Omoe - (bass clarinet, flute, percussion)
• Lex Humphries - (drums percussion)
• Robert Underwood [Aye Aton] - (drums)
• Harry Richards - (drums, percussion)
• Alzo Wright - (drums, percussion)
• Stanley Morgan [Atakatune] - (conga, percussion)
• Russell Branch [Odun] - (conga, percussion)
• June Tyson, Ruth Wright, Cheryl Banks, Judith Holton - (ethnic voices)

Recorded at Streeterville Studios, Chicago, October 19–20, 1972

TRACKS:

• SIDE A
• A1. Pan Afro .......... 07:52
• A2. Discipline eight .......... 07:49
• A3. Neptune.......... 05:42

• SIDE B
• B1. Discipline Twenty Seven-II .......... 24:06