Sun Ra

Decades before his time, political and musical revolutionary, Sun Ra, developed a new plane of cultural existence where black people were all-powerful beings from outer space, sending their intergalactic message through jazz music. Recorded live in 1975 at Cleveland's legendary jazz club, the Smiling Dog Saloon, when Sun Ra and his Arkestra descended on the city for a week-long residency. You can imagine how the uninitiated's jaw must have dropped when Ra and his 15 musicians marched out onto the stage decked in glittery space costumes, playing percussion instruments and chanting. This high quality live performance is top-shelf Ra playing a kind of spaced out world music with hints of disco. Ra sings, plays the Moog, piano and organ, while everyone else plays alternately some kind of percussion or reed instrument, sings, dances, and claps hands. Check out his other-worldly version of Duke Ellington's 'Sophisticated Lady', featuring John Gilmore on sax, and his extended Moog solo!