In 1980, documentarian Robert Mugge released Sun Ra: Joyful Noise, a chronicle of the iconoclastic jazz bandleader’s show at the Famous Ballroom in Baltimore on July 23, 1978, as presented by the Left Bank Jazz Society. Lights On a Satellite: Live at the Left Bank captures that performance nearly in full. (The set is filled out with audio tracks taken directly from the film.) It’s simply a superb example of the Sun Ra experience, especially live. Joined by veteran bandmembers Marshall Allen, John Gilmore, June Tyson, Danny Davis, Michael D. Anderson, Michael Ray, and more in what was then called the Myth Science Cosmo Swing Arkestra, the composer/keyboardist who claimed he was from Saturn takes us on a tour of his fractured yet cogent vision. As was his wont when on a stage, Ra indulges himself in every musical variant of his sound: space rocking avant big band jazz (“We Travel the Spaceways,” “Space Travelin’ Blues”), lovely ballads (“Lights On a Satellite”), wild free jazz (“Tapestry From an Asteroid,” a version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” that would have probably broken its composers), acid poetry (“They Plan to Leave”), bebop ( Tadd Dameron’s “Lady Bird”), African percussion chants (“Watusi”), straightforward big band swing (former Ra boss Fletcher Henderson’s “Yeah Man”). With its breadth, depth, and enthusiastic performances, it’s like a crash course in Arkestral history. This may not be the right choice for a Ra newcomer…then again, it might be the perfect choice.
