Sun Ra… maybe more progressive than we thought.

I love Sun Ra. One of the wildest, weirdest artists ever to record. Have you seen the film "Space Is The Place"? It's as tripped out as his music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owCPrIEliZc

Quite a few RIO/Avant musicians are Sun Ra fans; Chris Cutler issued Ra albums on Recommended Records, Daevid Allen mentioned him as an influence and so did members of Guapo.

A good starting point for prog fans could be Strange Celestial Road from the late 70s, which has more of a fusion feel, as does Space is the Place.

There were a lot of old artists who strayed away from the norms and created new and different styles of music that were hard to pin down in “genres”.    Genres are useful for sure, especially the eclectic prog, or experimental genre, for many of these outsider musicians who basically did their own thing and made it work.   I depend on genre descriptions to get me in the ballpark. I think Sun Ra has been accepted by Prog rockers since the 70s. I remember going into a record store in Pasadena in the 70s run by a group of hippies. Sun Ra was their music god lol. All you ever heard playing in their shop were things you were unfamiliar with. I’d ask, “what the hell is that, it’s awesome?   And they would rattle off some names I’d never ever heard of. I’d usually walk out with a record or two just after first hearing it in the store. Those guys got me into a lot of prog. Including Faust, Can, Amon duul, even Hawkwind. Everyone at school was listening to zeppelin or Alice cooper, Jethro Tull… which is good as well. My musical tastes were way out there. Still are.

Edited by Valdez - 4 hours 15 minutes ago at 08:44

I talked to the JRF team many year ago about Sun Ra as I was keen to see it at least seriously considered, especially after hearing Languidity. This was some time after Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock were added and I was enthralled by many jazz artists who have added electric elements. Donald Byrd for Electric Byrd was one of the ones I was keenest on them seriously considering, but thy had their plan for additions.



In PA or not, Sun Ra is very obviously progressive even if not deemed Prog (which is common shorthand for progressive rock) or if included to Jazz-Rock/Fusion. I think of him as one of (among) the most progressive artists of the 20th century.