1966 Sun Ra And His Solar Arkestra “Other Planes of There” on El Saturn

Well, if on sheer design considerations alone, Ra and his Alternative Planes HAD to follow yesterday’s Eddie Bo, although it would be hard to imagine two more disparate artists in the larger sense of expression and intention. You’ll be unsurprised to hear that this 1964 recording is pure liquid genius, but also a lot more straight-ahead free blowing than other Arkestra outings of the same period, which can be loopy, disconnected free-blowing, boppish, avant, bluesy, orchestral, or piano driven as need be. Of course, all things are dipped in the wet cement foundation of The Waltz, which even in the furthest reaches achieved beyond Saturn, is a form Ra always comes home to. The arrangements are thick and dense - but here is probably the true genius of Ra - also airlessly precise. Ronnie Boykins, Pat Patrick, Marshall Allen, John Genius Gilmore, Lex Humphries, Roger Blank, Ali Hassan (check out dude’s fascinating backstory), and Danny Davis.

​I have used up pretty much every positive, gushing adjective in the English language, and also French and German, to describe Sun Ra’s music, so I will step back here and simply say that this record is the vinyl equivalent of mainlining a heated solution of Newtonian Physics, General Relativity, West African field hollars, 40’s Chicago brownstones, Philly sidewalk attitude, Delta Blues, abstract Doo Wop, delicate platinum filigree, Impressionism, Cubist portraiture, the melancholy of the lost era of swing, high-end woodworking, the vacuum of space, and the sheer pleasure of merely standing in place. Oh hell yea.