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“The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra” came out in 1965 when the world of free jazz was starting to peak. Although often lumped with the free jazz crowd, Ra always made it clear that his band did not play free jazz per se, Ra was the leader and organizer and when you were in his band, you were not free, you were “in the Ra jail”. Sonny’s weird humor aside, the band certainly used intensely free sections when called upon, but still, this album was often criticized by the free crowd at the time for being too much like composed modern concert hall music. Well you certainly can't keep everyone happy and I doubt Sun Ra ever tried or was the lest bit interested in pleasing anyone but himself and his faithful band. Despite the fact that Sonny put out so many albums, quite often each album has a unique approach not to be duplicated on subsequent albums. “Heliocentric” has some familiar Sun Ra elements, but also has some musical. elements that exist only on this album. This is an Arkestra album, but it’s a slightly small Arkestra and features some of Ra’s best long standing band members.
One of the salient features on this album are all the low instruments, bass trombone, bass marimba, bass clarinet, baritone sax, Ronnie Boykin’s powerhouse bass fiddle and lots of tympany. As a contrast we also get some extreme upper register sounds from Ra’s celesta and Marshall Allen’s piccolo. Sun Ra’s band had a knack for taking European orchestral instruments and making them sound African, and that is in full effect here. The tympanis in particular take on the sound of a very low pitched talking drum. On the opening title track murky low end ramblings from the marimba and bass are punctuated with held tones on the horns in imitation of the horns you would hear on an African field recording, along with frequent interjections from the tympany. On “Outer Nothingness” the band becomes more active with short chaotic outbursts followed by mysterious low rumbles. Side one closes out with, “Other Worlds”, which is a classic free jazz free-for-all.
On side two we open with a short off kilter jazz waltz before the band settles into more juxtapositions of quiet sections and more charged sections. Halfway through “Of Heavenly Things”, Boykins slips into a walking bass line as the others take turns with their trademark odd solos. “Nebulae” is a real treat as we get to hear Sonny working out on the celesta, not an instrument he used often. The album closes out with “Dancing in the Sun” a chaotic bebop romp that is quite short in true bebop fashion. This is one of Sonny’s better offerings and the recording quality is quite good for a Sun Ra album. There are no vocal chants on here, the space chants can be fun live, but tedious on albums, this album is pure instrumental music and pure magic.