★Modern Harmonic
Astro Sounds - From Beyond The Year 2000
Swirling guitars and proto-ambient electronica sounds from many light years away! The Astro-Sound of Magnificence, from Beyond the Year 2000...a unique capsule of a funky, psychedelic rhythm section jamming, with snarling, stabbing and swooshing cranked-up-to-infinity electric guitar voyages piloted by Wrecking Crew veteran Jerry Cole, polished and primed for takeoff with a string section playing eerie, beckoning melodies in unison. These are the sounds of epiphanies concerning the future, …
Goodbye to Love
A sultry and sophisticated songbird. The ultra-rare debut and sole output of a wondrous and mysterious vocalist, perfectly accompanied by guitar icon Barney Kessel. An Early Stereo marvel from the original 1959 tapes! Kessel was a jazz pioneer -- as one of the leading lights of the hard-bop movement, his jazz guitar was legendary, and he was ranked the No. 1 guitarist in Down Beat and Playboy for numerous years. He played with Sonny Rollins and Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald as well a…
Sound of Speed
In the late 1950s, when Mexican-born Space Age Pop avatar Esquivel was in his prime, orchestra leader/composer/arranger Bob Thompson was his American stylistic counterpart. They recorded for the same label (RCA Victor), employed many of the same musicians and vocalists, and experimented with sound in the same Los Angeles studios.His RCA albums, Mmm, Nice!, Just for Kicks, and On the Rocks, embody 1950s orchestral pop: brimming with sparkle and sophistication, an appealing soundtrack for the…
Texas Oil Songs
Country singer and disc jockey Slim Willet’s ode to tool-pushin’! Texas Oil Patch Songs was issued in 1959 by the artist on his own Winston label, and now is an impossibly-rare LP to dig up—and this Modern Harmonic edition is faithful to the original, including all twelve tracks, liner notes, and restored artwork! And on petro-blue vinyl!
"Ahh… the “Concept Album”…Critics write of Sinatra’s In The Wee Small Hours…or of groundbreaking 60’s rock opera opuses…but while the big studios set the …
Thunder of the Gods
Sun Ra is still trying to get our attention 50 years after dispatching this transmission. Humanity’s path since then makes his message even more urgent today. Years after Herman Poole “LeSony’r Ra” Blount “left the planet” he’s still trying to reach us, to wake us up and to change our destiny.Sun Ra and the Arkestra weren’t a traditional studio band, and every star in the vast galaxy of their discography reflects this. The origins of these records can be hard to pinpoint at times, but when it co…
El Is A Sound Of Joy
Shining sounds from the dawn of the Sun Ra Arkestra. "El is A Sound of Joy" was recorded in 1956 and appeared the following year on the very first Saturn LP, Super-Sonic Jazz. Incredible is the fact that saxophonist Charles Davis, here providing the soulful baritone anchor line (counterpoint to Ra's formidable left hand), remains in the front-line of today's Sun Ra Arkestra directed by Marshall Allen. Shuffle swing breakdown jets leisurely, casually, masterfully, painting lush, post-modern impre…
Plutonian Nights / Reflects Motion (Part 1)
"Plutonian Nights," the opening jam from the 1959 Afrofuturist classic album Nubians of Plutonia, is Sun Ra's quintessential, astro-majestic party joint. Among the top grooves in his immense catalog, Ra reveals his love for R&B is inseparable from his embrace of Jazz. (He once told bassist Richard Evans, "We don't play Jazz, we play Dazz.") Pat Patrick's bari sax morphs into a Fender bass, while the swinging flow of John Gilmore & Co. gives new meaning to the notion of 'Blowing' (Out From Chica…
Saturn / Mystery Mr. Ra
Sun Ra's angular yet strident and soulful "Saturn,” recorded in 1958, displays bluesy cubist bop in perfect alter-dimensional extension of Fletcher Henderson. It's also a showcase for John Gilmore's sax acrobatics and supersonic swing. Gilmore dove deep into the Ra Omniverse; "got the concept" - as Coltrane described the tenor giant - hooked by this composition, and never left. Dual baritones of Pat Patrick and Charles Davis (who continues in the front line of the living, glowing Arkestra of 201…
Space Songs
The first ever vinyl reissue of an extraordinarily-unique space-age educational LP. Includes the oft-covered “A Shooting Star Is Not A Star” and “Why Does The Sun Shine?” Featuring Leo Leonni cover art and taken from the original atomic-era 1959 master tapes. Written by Hy Zaret and sung by Tom Glazer & Dottie Evans. Zaret (co-author of “Unchained Melody”) turned his attention to educational children’s music in the late 1950s, collaborating with Lou Singer on a six-album series called “Ballads f…
Love Is A Drag - For Adult Listeners Only
A once shocking 1962 LP of love songs… by men, for men. A long lost treasure featuring the cool & sophisticated vocals of Gene Howard and a cast of prime studio jazz musicians, performing a set of standards sung to a male suitor. Ahead of its time in every way. A fantastic, once-shocking album finally sees reissue - and brings with it the answer to a half-century mystery! Case file: A big band vocalist, a Hollywood photographer, and an LGBT music and history archivist - they are the heart of th…
Live At Inter-Media Arts
Triple LP version. A stunning live Sun Ra event, recorded at the Inter-Media Arts Center in New York, April 20, 1991! Modern Harmonic proudly presents this very special Sun Ra recording, issued here for the first time ever! This concert was just two years before Ra’s “earthly departure” – and his keyboard work was amazingly strident and vibrant here. The Arkestra was in perfect form as well; this special night also showcased the Arkestra’s vocal magnificence with selections and sections powerful…
The Space Age Is Here To Stay
Double LP version. The first-ever collection of Arkestra vocal tracks! Over 75 minutes of vocal performances - audible perfection! Featuring album art interpreted from the work of "the father of modern space art," Chesley Bonestell, plus extensive liner notes. Across the history of jazz, there is no wilder, more future-forward composer and performer than Herman Poole Blount, aka Sun Ra. Known as much for his wild on-stage persona as his innovative compositions, Sun Ra was the avant-garde bleedin…
The Lady With The Golden Stockings
The Lady With The Golden Stockings" is a propulsive, forthright groove – a decisive, deep-space, pre-dawn party jam, emitting golden sparks from the black hole center which begat "Africa" and "Watusa." Quantum-elasticity of temporal equations, bubbling bass, trumpet dancing on light waves, tenor sax serenade across the galaxy, signaling yonder... vessels... beings... femaliens... Pure poetry in sublime, delicate, rhythmelodic motion becomes "Spontaneous Simplicity.” A centerpiece among the gentl…
Rocket Number Nine
Among Sun Ra's most famous and jet-propelled anthems, "Rocket Number Nine" is heard here in one of the earliest renditions from a marathon June 1960 session, with a staggering, swaggering, hip-bop beat. Ignition. Liftoff. "Rocket Number Nine Take Off for the Planet Venus, Zoom Zoom! Up in the air! Zoom! Up!" Paired with originally unknown recordings, including the driving, bossa nova-infused "Ankhnation" from 1959 and "Project Black Mass" from 1962. More energized and driving in contrast …
Variations IV
Anything can happen and often does. This is John Cage. A seminal example of indeterminate music from an icon on experimental sounds. This work was originally used as music for the choreographed piece by Merce Cunningham, "Field Dances," with stage and costume design in the original version by Robert Rauschenberg (from 1967 the designer was Remy Charlip). Variations IV is the second work in a group of three of which Atlas Eclipticalis is the first (representing 'nirvana', according to Hidekaz…