Sun Ra & His Arkestra - Super Sonic Jazz (+1 Bonus Track)

Super Sonic Jazz (later reissued as Super Sonic Sounds) was one of the many albums recorded by Sun Ra for the Saturn label from the mid-fifties to the early-sixties. It was recorded in 1956 at the RCA Studios in Chicago and was actually the first album to be released on El Saturn Records, a label owned and run by Alton Abraham and Sun Ra. The label El Saturn is considered, along with the Charles Mingus/Max Roach Debut label and Harry Partch's Gate 5 label, one of the very first and most active artist-owned record labels.
"Super Sonic Jazz comes from the mid-1950s. It is a set of originals combining conventional harmony and orchestrations with a thoroughly individual 'voice' (conveyed in occasional devices like Wilburn Green's use of electric bass on 'Super Blonde' and the closing 'Medicine for a Nightmare') and a striking gentleness that contrasts sharply with the often brutal aspect of contemporaneous hard bop. So good is Julian Priester 's own brief 'Soft Talk' (the only non-Sun Ra composition) that one immediately wishes for more." - **** 1/2 Richard Cook & Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz