Sun Ra: Fate In A Pleasant Mood (180g, 6 bonus tracks) [PAN AM]

Why you'll love it

This 180g pressing adds six bonus tracks to the original seven. It captures the Arkestra in Chicago in 1960, with John Gilmore, Marshall Allen and Ronnie Boykins, just before the band headed east.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• 6 bonus tracks

About the album

Some records take the scenic route. Sun Ra cut most of this one at a marathon Chicago session around June 1960, somewhere between 30 and 40 songs in a single sitting, then let the tapes wait until his own Saturn label put the album out in 1965. Years later, a white-label test pressing of an early version turned up in a Montréal record store.

The music sits right at the hinge between Ra's swinging Chicago big band and the space music to come. "Space Mates" stretches out over seven minutes, "Lights Of A Satellite" glows with exotica colours, and "Ankhnaton" leans into the Egyptian imagery that never left him. Gilmore's tenor and Allen's alto weave through the horns, Boykins anchors everything on bass, and "Distant Stars" was caught live at the Wonder Inn that October. Phil Cohran's cornet and Nate Pryor's trombone fill out the RCA tracks, with Jon Hardy keeping time.

Impulse! picked it up for a reissue in 1974, and it has drifted back into print ever since. It's the friendliest door into the Arkestra we know of, and nobody asks for a password.

Also at Kops: more Sun Ra on vinyl · browse Modern Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Pan Am Records (cat# 9152336), a reissue of the 1965 album.