Sun Ra

Dance of the Living Image: Lost Reel Collection Volume Four

Label: Transparency Country: Italy

"Ra rehearsals have always been known to be legendary. Rehearsals were marathon sessions that would result in some of Ra's most original works. In fact, some of the early Saturn releases were actually from rehearsals. Sun Ra always had a tape recorder going to capture his music at every opportunity. Yet, there is little material that has surfaced over the years from these rehearsals when one considers the sum of all the music that must have been recorded.

It came as quite a surprise then when this rehearsal session was discovered on a tape box that was actually labeled as "Mexico City 1/26/74". Here is living proof that what was labeled as one thing actually contained something completely different.

Unfortunately, there is no music from the also legendary trip to Mexico in 1974. But, in its place is 96 minutes of a rehearsal, believed to take place in the San Francisco area in December 1974. You will hear cuts and edits as the recorder would be started and stopped as Sun Ra led the band through this session. We felt it was important to leave the recording as found, with only some minor remastering work to enhance the sound where possible.

An Arkestra member once summed it up best when he said "The best music always came from the rehearsals." Here is solid evidence to back up that statement!"-from the liner notes