Sun Ra "Secrets of the Sun" LP

Secrets of the Sun is one of many Sun Ra albums which originated from sessions at the Choreographer's Workshop, a West 51st Street venue which served as the Arkestra's rehearsal space from roughly 1962 to 1965. The band rehearsed there endlessly, and more often than not an open-reel tape deck was running. These sessions produced tracks which (without organizing logic) achieved first commercial release on Saturn LPs throughout the 1960s and '70s. (Many unreleased tracks are first appearing on these post-2014 "Sun-tennial" digital remasters.)

Secrets of the Sun was recorded in 1962, but didn't appear on Saturn vinyl until '65. Per what had long been the bandleader's trademark, many titles point to destinations beyond Earth's stratosphere, while paradoxically echoing rhythms and forms inspired by Africa. And in what was a recurring motif of the Choreographer's milieu, the recordings themselves have a raw quality, replete with warehouse acoustics, distortion, erratic mic proximity, and a limited frequency spectrum. It's garage jazz. As on many of the Workshop sessions, drummer Tommy Hunter served as recording engineer, and his proto-psychedelic reverb saturates a few of these performances.