I’ve mentioned before that I love the music of Sun Ra.

I
think of him as something of an “adjacent-universe Duke
Ellington”, and he probably would have been delighted
with that description. There are some close parallels
between Sun Ra (born Herman Blount) and Ellington; he
was an accomplished pianist with a deep knowledge of
ragtime and church music, but made his name mostly as a
composer for jazz orchestra; his music was often tailored
to the musical strengths and personalities of individual
band members, and many of those collaborators stayed
with the band for decades; he was always writing and
rewriting music on the fly, and it’s sometimes hard to
know how much of a Sun Ra piece is improvised and how
much is preconceived. Even though he used to travel
with suitcases full of sheet music, portions of a Sun Ra
Arkestra concert would be open to group improvisation
and experimentation. I recommend John Szwed’s
biography Space is the Place if you want to learn more
about a unique American icon.

This song comes from one of Sun Ra’s early studio albums,
and it’s reminiscent of a lot of the popular music from the
big band era. Still, it has a few harmonic quirks that give
it a more modern flavor.