The two Saturns, from 1966; plus a third, previously-unreleased volume of five originals and four standards.
‘More of a collection of statements than a style. Some of the tunes, with their odd juxtapositions of mood, could be mistaken for silent film scores. Perhaps they were audio notebooks, a way to generate ideas which could be developed with the band. Regardless, they serve as compelling standalone works. The fingering reflects Sun Ra’s encyclopedic knowledge of piano history as his passages veer from stride to swing, from barrelhouse to post-bop, from march to Cecil Taylor-esque free flights, with a bit of soothing candelabra- swank thrown in. Sunny’s attack is mercurial, his themes unpredictable. His hands can be primitive or playful, then abruptly turn sensitive and elegant. As with the whole of Sun Ra’s recorded legacy, you get everything but consistency and predictability.
‘The listener also experiences something rare in the omniverse of Sun Ra recordings: intimacy. His albums, generally populated by the rotating Arkestral cast, are raucous affairs. With the Monorails sessions, we eavesdrop on private moments: the artist, alone with his piano.’

From 1982, this was the last of the El Saturn studio albums.
Open, upful and swinging, including the only recordings of Blue Intensity and the title-track Celestial Love, besides a bouquet of other Ra originals, and a couple of Duke Ellingtons featuring the one and only June Tyson in full effect.
Surely the arrangement of Charlie Chaplin’s Smile, with Tyson and Gilmore upfront together, will cheer you up a bit.

‘One thing is certain about a Sun Ra performance: You never know what to expect. Last week at the Chicago Jazz Festival, he presented a huge troupe of musicians, dancers and acrobats in a veritable circus of improvisation’ (John Litweiler, Chicago Tribune, September 9, 1988).
The entire show as originally broadcast by National Public Radio in the same year.

Three previously unreleased transmissions: two salvaged from the hallowed tapes of Strange Strings, his hardcore 1966 masterwork; whilst Calling Planet Earth / We’ll Wait For You — from the same time as Universe In Blue, five years later — is twenty-four minutes from a triumphant show at Slug’s, featuring June Tyson and heavy Ra synths on two Arkestra evergreens.

From 1964, with Pharoah Sanders sitting in for John Gilmore (away working with Paul Bley, Andrew Hill and Art Blakey); also flautist Harold Murray and the brilliant bassist Alan Silva. The debut of The Shadow World.

Late-sixties recordings from Sun Studios — chez Ra — in Philadelphia.
The first-ever release of six works; plus revivals of 1950s classics Sunology and Ancient Aiethiopia; and an early treatment of Why Go To The Moon.

In 1961 Sun Ra took off from Chicago – where he had established the Arkestra, his dedicated ensemble and the vehicle for his mission to better the planet – and with a scaled-down version of the band he landed in NewYork. Their first recording session was in Newark in October of that year. The Futuristic Sounds Of Sun Ra, recorded for the Savoy label, is a beautiful document of the material they’d honed during a long residency at the Wonder Inn at the end of the Chicago period. Among tracks left in the vault from that day in the studio were these two great ballads sung by Ricky Murray, both of them redolent of the bright popcraft that had long been part of Ra’s repertoire, with classic Afrofuturist themes of navigating outer space and altered destiny cloaked in sweet songs with tart arrangements.
“Marshall Allen especially liked playing I Struck A Match On The Moon,” recalls Ricky, “because he got a chance to light up a cigarette while we were singing.”

Fastidiously designed facsimiles of two pamphlets which accompanied early Sun Ra albums; and two substantial publications more than a decade later by Infinity Inc./Saturn Research.
Issued in 1957 by the Boston-based Transition label, his debut LP Jazz By Sun Ra contained a beautiful booklet, now as prized as the LP itself, with rare photographs and a selection of poems and proclamations, as well as the personnel and recording credits.
Ra’s Jazz In Silhouette was released two years later on Saturn Records, coming with a mimeographed, folded, unstapled booklet. The CvsD version folds this slim pamphlet of poetry into a slipcover with a classic photo portrait of Ra by Thomas “Bugs” Hunter on the back.
Perhaps Ra’s best known book of poetry, The Immeasurable Equation is restored after the original Infinity Inc./Saturn Research version, published in Chicago in 1972, and distributed widely by the Arkestra, often from the bandstand. It features more than sixty of Ra’s poems.
Finally, perhaps the rarest of Ra’s poetry books is Extensions Out: Immeasurable Equation Vol. II, which was also published by Infinity Inc./Saturn Research. This 8.5 x 11-inch book is a massive compendium of more than 130 poems, very much in step with the mimeo poetry publications of its era — simple staple binding, one-sided pages — featuring three photographs of artwork by Ayé Aton, a close ally of Ra’s in this, the period of the Arkestra classic Space Is The Place, on which Aton plays percussion. Great care was taken to reproduce the special textured cover of this highly sought after book.

The definitive edition, with much better sound than any of the rather garbled ESP iterations.
‘Recorded on May 18, 1966 at St Lawrence University, Potsdam, NY, Nothing Is…Completed & Revisited has Ra, who was at the time only just beginning to perform on the US college circuit, testing the water with a programme drawn from several stages of his work with the Arkestra. There are space chants (Outer Spaceways Incorporated, Next Stop Mars, Second Stop Is Jupiter, We Travel The Spaceways), a salute to the swing era (Velvet, from the 1959 Saturn masterpiece Jazz In Silhouette), far-out material such as the sixteen minute version of Outer Nothingness from the 1965 ESP album The Heliocentric Worlds Of Sun Ra Vol. l, and trippy exotica such as reed player Marshall Allen’s oboe feature Exotic Forest, here given its first airing on disc.
‘The twelve-piece band is killer, with Allen, tenor saxophonist John Gilmore, baritone saxophonist Pat Patrick and trombonists Ali Hassan and Teddy Nance propelled by the A-team anchors Ronnie Boykins on bass and tuba and Clifford Jarvis on drums. Everyone, including Ra on clavioline and piano, is on top form’ (Chris May, All About Jazz).