Sun Ra - Uncharted Passages - Ltd 2LP (Yellow)

Sun Ra was a master of misdirection. Tape boxes wrongly labeled—whether by accident or design—are legendary among Ra archivists. One can speculate about the artist's intent or carelessness, but source misinformation abounds on Ra tape cases, album jackets, cassettes, ephemera—as well as in interviews. It's as if Ra, in furtherance of his own mythmaking, wanted to keep historians guessing.

This project began as a misidentified tape discovered by Michael D. Anderson of the Sun Ra Music Archive. The 7-inch reel, which contained a live Ra solo piano performance of 11 works—some recognizable, others not—was of stellar quality, and was marked as a 1979 Carnegie Hall date. But the program on the tape did not align with known facts (e.g., titles played, concert duration) which were chronicled in a Newsday review of Ra's appearance at Carnegie in September of that year. With a prod from writer/historian Ted Gioia and further research by myself, the tape was eventually identified as a mostly unreleased July 1977 performance by Ra at a downtown NYC "jazz café" called The Axis-in-Soho. 

Tracklist:
01. Axis Rhapsody
02. St. Louis blues
03. Blue Play
04. Axis Nexus
05. Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child
06. Axis Extempore
07. Honeysuckle Rose - Enlightment
08. Space Is The Place
09. Axis Impromptu
10. Everything I Have Is Yours
11. At Sundown
12. June Night
13. Rumination

Limited edition double gatefold LP, Yellow Vinyl
Released by Modern Harmonic 14. March 2025