From 1979, and including UFO — rumbustious disco, Arkestra-style, featuring Marshall Allen on oboe, with solos from John Gilmore, Taylor Richardson and Michael Ray (who also mixed the album, layering in pre-recorded material).
Seductive Fantasy lines up John Gilmore, James Jacson’s bassoon, some fine baritone saxophone and some electric guitar and bass, Marshall Allen’s oboe and Eloe Omoe’s bass clarinet, with great piano-playing from Ra throughout, and towards the end some arco strings.

From the same 1979 recording sessions as Strange Celestial Road, this is one of Sun Ra’s best-loved, funkiest records, with John Gilmore in full flight, and a bigger Arkestra than had just played the Moers festival.

The LP is in the ‘Verve By Request’ series.

Ace, late-seventies set, warmly buoyant and inimitably baggy, including Space Is The Place.
Six reeds (including John Gilmore and Marshall Allen), three trumpets (including Michael Ray and Eddie Gale), two trombones (with a young Robin Eubanks), the French horn of Vincent Chancey, guitarist Dale Williams, three bassists, four percussionists, singer June Tyson and of course Ra on keyboards.

From 1972, with Ra on organ throughout — trading solos with Gilmore and trumpeter Kwame Hadi on the bluesy title cut; duetting with drummer Luqman Ali on In A Blue Mood. June Tyson stars on Blackman.

The George Harrison… Just Like A Woman detourned… O-o-h Child, Mr Bojangles… even an uptempo, conga-driven My Way.

Live, organic, cosmic house from the master for the fiftieth SS. Slow-burning electro-boogie — synths over a clicking, swaying, volatile beat — and a more uptempo jazz trip, with dusty, wacked-out breaks.

First time out for this wildly raw dubplate, sister-recording to the Pablo master-rhythm, shot through with other-worldly incantation.
Surely that’s Family Man stalking a sunken cavern, and his bro battering all seven shades out of his drum-kit, like Meters on fire; and Chinna on guitar, glazed and violent. The mixing rears up right in your face.
Producer Gussie Clarke says Theophilus ‘Easy Snappin’ Beckford is playing piano, with the front removed so he can strum the strings (like he finally snapped) — but he credits the work overall to Augustus Pablo.
Transferred from acetate — fuss-pots don’t grumble, just be humble — though the flip brings a clutch of criss, unmissable alternates, direct from Gussie’s tape-room (where the files are entitled ‘Classical Illusion / The Sun’).
Heavy, heavy funk. Simplicity People dug in. Stunning.

Last few.

‘10/10 Pop music as it should be: beautiful, heartbreaking, but ultimately uplifting’, NME; ‘*****’, Mojo.

Wayne Shuler always recorded Bettye with a black audience in mind, and despite the high proportion of country songs these are definitely soul records, though like nothing else from the time. Bettye never sings with the desolation of O.V. Wright, the hurt of Percy Sledge, or the sheer pain of the final Linda Jones records. There’s a southern feel to these Swann-Shuler recordings, but they also have a light, almost poppy quality to them. Sometimes they sound like the missing link between Muscle Shoals and Motown.

The LP here is a worthy reissue by Music On Vinyl of the classic Honest Jon’s compilation, on its twentieth anniversary; the CD is from back in the day.