Attempts to dismiss Sun Ra as an “outsider” artist, an eccentric who made strange claims, are always own goals. Of course he was an outsider. That was precisely his point. And not just an outsider. He came from so far away we could not imagine it. But he also came from right inside American culture and was deeply shaped by it. There is perhaps no more representative an American artist of the modern period. If the Saturn V rocket was the symbol one kind of hegemony, governed by the dollar and the slide rule, the Arkestra was its joyous, subversive retort. Next stop for NASA seems to be Mars, but he got there first. – Brian Morton

Sun Ra - piano

Marshall Allen - alto saxophone

John Gilmore - tenor saxophone

Pat Patrick - baritone saxophone

Robert Cummings - baritone clarinet

Ali Hassan - trombone

Teddy Nance - trombone

Carl Nimrod - sun horn & gong

Ronnie Boykins - double bass & tuba

James Jackson - log drum & flute

Clifford Jarvis - drums