Few artist straddled the world of traditional jazz and space travel as Sun ra.This album of previously unreleased material stems from a gig back in July 1978 with his band that included stalwarts such as John Gilmore/ts-cl, Marshall Allen/as-fl, along with vocalist June Tyson to bridge the gap between soul and the stratosphere.
Sun ra’s playing on keyboards and p iano ranges between James P Johnson and Cecil Tayler as on “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” and “Cocktails For Two” with Allen. The horn sections swings on a couple tunes from the swing era, with “Yeah Man” and “Bug John’s Special” humming along before splattering like mercury, while “Lady Bird” and “Half Nelson” bop with intergalactic delight. The percussion team of The Jingle Brothers, Atakatune and James Jackson go overtime on “Watusi” and “Thunder of Drums” with Tyson in elastic form on “tapestry From An Asteroid” and “They Plan To Leave” Some wild electronics ooze in and out of the pieces with a white knuckler of “’Round Midnight” landing the space craft safely back to earth. Make sure you get proper decompression afterwards!