Rare and unreleased Sun Ra recordings reissued on vinyl

Good news for Sun Ra fans as new reissue series drops from outer space.

With the candles on his 101st birthday cake still smoking, the late jazz pianist, philosopher and astral savant Sun Ra is to have some of the lesser known recesses of his extensive catalogue of recordings remastered and reissued on vinyl.

Overseen by Sun Ra’s earthly representatives LLC administrator Irwin Chusid and Sun Ra Music Archiver Michael D. Anderson, the releases will be split into three mouth-watering sections.

The first will be a set taken from the Arkestra’s Choreographers Workshop sessions in NYC, recorded between 1962 and 1965 – a period infamous for Ra’s ferocious rehearsal schedule (some say up to sixteen hours a day), followed by an exotica collection spanning his entire career, finishing up with and a series of singles compiled by Anderson.

Set to be released on Chusid’s yet-to-be-named label, the reissues will throw light on the variety of Ra’s output, touching on his prolific output as a more straight-up band leader in the Duke Ellington mould, as well as the wigged-out free jazz experiments with which he later made his name. [via Billboard]

Need more Ra? We asked thirteen artists how Sun Ra changed their lives, which you can read here.