Sun Ra
 

OK , so I`ve been aware of this guy for years. Total nutcases making music is something that I rather enjoy finding out about.I heard a few songs off his Nuclear War album & thought they were great , but seriously where the hell do I go from here.This guys back catalogue is HUGE.

Any help guiding me through this mountain of work would be appreciated.

From memory 'Purple Night' and 'Blue Delight' were the two my ex's best mate used to harp on about the very most. From a cursory glance they look fairly impractical to get hold of.

I see what you mean , i`ve found one copy of Purple Night on Ebay (U.S. only) and Amazon have one copy of Blue Delight for £50.

Still , i`ll keep looking

Thanks for this thread, I'm also kinda wondering where to look. I'm thinking about checking out Super Sonic Jazz, kinda read some stuff online suggesting that might be the one, and also I havent heard anything from it. Ive heard two or three off Jazz in Silhouette, they were exceptional, so who knows, these kinda things, you might not be let down with any purchase.

5 albums down , only another couple of thousand to go :)

Atlantis
Space Is The Place
Jazz In Silhouette
The Magic City



Those are all in print, I believe, and should be in the $10-$15 range.

That's the case with most jazz musicians (although Sun Ra is indeed one of the larger perpetrators). If you want help sorting through everything, I'd pick up the Penguin Guide to Jazz (the 7th edition is the newest). It's like a Leonard Maltin guide, but for jazz CDs. It only includes CDs that are in print (or that were in print, as of the writing), specifically only the ones that are in print in Great Britain, fortuneately for you. It's about $25 here, but it's thick, and definitely a worthwhile purchase.


P.S. If you take a serious interest in jazz, it's practically never a good idea to buy compilations that aren't complete (i.e. Complete Bitches Brew Sessions, Complete Verve Recordings, etc.). With the catalogues that many of the musicians have, they could often have ten CD's of Grade-A, "Greatest Hits" worthy music, and if you buy enough, a one-disc compilation will just become a waste of money.

The Heliocentric Worlds albums are supposed to be his best works, but I haven't heard them myself, so I can't confirm this.

I've had Heliocentric Worlds 1 and 2 on order for a while (I don't think they'll ever come, the place must not have realized that they didn't have them in stock anymore, I'll probably reorder them from somewhere else), but I've never heard of them being his best.

I dig Space is the Place.