The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume Two

Studio album by Sun Ra and his Solar Arkestra

Released

1966

Recorded

November 16, 1965

Genre

Free Jazz

Length

36:45

Label

ESP-Disk

Sun Ra and his Solar Arkestra chronology

The Magic City
(1965)

The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume Two
(1965)

Nothing Is
(1966)

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The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide

The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume Two is a 1965 recording by the jazz musician Sun Ra and his Solar Arkestra. Where Volume One of the Heliocentric Worlds series had predominantly featured short abstract pieces, Volume Two features longer pieces performed by a smaller group, making it closer in spirit to the contemporaneous The Magic City, released on Ra's own Saturn label. The record has been widely bootlegged, some versions of which were retitled The Sun Myth.

The album was re-released on CD by ZYX-Music (ESP 1017-2) in the 1990s.

"The Sun Myth" is constructed around the intertwining of Ronnie Boykins's bowed bass and Ra's electronic keyboard. These predominantly low sounds contrast sharply with the interlude commentaries from the other Arkestra members. A rare alternative version – also on ESP, and with the same catalogue number – overlays African singing at the start and finish of the piece.

"A House of Beauty" is a feature for piccolo, keyboards and bowed bass, which transforms into a piano and plucked bass duet.

"Cosmic Chaos" is an example of the apparently free but actually conducted blowing for which the Arkestra would become known over the following decades.

The sleeve, designed by Paul Frick, features a German astronomical chart of the solar system. Beneath it, Frick has placed Sun Ra within a pantheon of astronomers and scientists including Tycho Brahe, Leonardo da Vinci, Copernicus, Galileo and Pythagoras.

All songs by Sun Ra
Side A:

Side B:

Recorded November 16, 1965 at Studio RLA, New York.

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Wikipedia