#space jazz

PAON

Sun Ra and his Solar Arkestra: Visits Planet Earth (1966) [Recorded 1958/1956]

For everyday fans struggling to wrap their heads around the free jazz insanity of The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra's twin volumes in 1966, Visits Planet Earth must have felt like a welcome return to less extreme and challenging sound experiments.

Emphasis on "return," because although it was released in 1966, Visits Planet Earth collected recordings dating back to 1956 and '58, when jazz's ultimate space cadet and his Solar Arkestra were undergoing a radical musical mutation.

Indeed, these "Franken-Sessions" constructed a bridge between the ensemble's big-band bebop roots and the adventurous space jazz explorations undertaken by the "Golden Era" Arkestra, including John Gilmore on tenor sax and Marshall Allen on alto sax, among others.

To wit, while their music is bebop-adjacent, the titles and themes of tracks like "Planet Earth," "Reflections in Blue," and "Saturn" signaled some of the Arkestra's first steps into Afrofuturism, which established their mythology as extraterrestrial travelers.

The swaggering "Saturn," in particular, would become a staple of Sun Ra's live performances for decades to come, and while "Two Tones" is pretty much pure bop, "Eve" contains a "blocky," percussive Ra piano solo that some critics compared to Thelonious Monk.

Also according to critics ('cos what do I know?), one of my favorite numbers, "Overtones of China," was an early example of Ra's "exotica" influence, meshing bombastic percussion (see also "El Viktor") and eerie flute solos that hinted at otherworldly textures yet to come.

Most of my favorite Sun Ra material inhabits this sonic realm, and much of it came neatly juxtaposed with eye-catching, hand-drawn cover art and multi-colored label variations (red, blue, green, whatever color was available) pressed by Ra's independent Saturn Records.

My LP is obviously a reissue, but its cover, like many from this period, was crafted by Sun Ra himself and unspecified Arkestra members, armed with nothing but paper, markers, crayons, and paint, while they shared communal living spaces in New York and later Philadelphia.

Like many elements of Sun Ra's "outsider" career, which scraped by largely without the benefits of traditional music industry infrastructure (major labels, distributors, etc.), what started as a matter of economic necessity, wound up turning D.I.Y. designs into fine art.

But let's get back to the music, because maybe the final word on Visits Planet Earth is that its clear melodies, structured compositions, and defined rhythms provide a far more inviting entry point into the Sun Ra discography than his mind-warping free jazz works.

Give it a spin and I think you will agree ...

Marshall Allen - The Omniverse Oriki - Afro-Cuban space jazz from Allen's trio with the Ade Ilu Ensemble