Sound of Joy
1956(So was the last one, mislabel on my part)
Tracks
1. El Is the Sound of Joy
2. Overtones of China
3. Two Tones
4. Paradise
5. Planet Earth
6. Ankh
7. Saturn
8. Reflections in Blue
9. Viktor
10. As you Once Were
11. Dreams Come True
Of all reviewed, The most conservative Sun Ra album yet. Again, not bad, but this album is almost strictly swing-jazz. It's well performed, but lacking a lot of the nuance of even the two albums before. SOME strange percussion but not much experimentation than that. I suppose that Sun Ra had to conform his sound a lot early on in order to acquire an audience, so it's understandable. Still, nowhere near up to snuff to his mid-60s experimental work, and 70s fusion, noise, pop experimentations. Good stuff, just lacks a unique voice.
Kind of sad because not much really struck out to me. The last two tracks have vocals. One is loungey, and the other sounds like it's trying to imitate Louis Armstrong. Really weird to hear Sun Ra being this bourgeoisie with his artform, but we know how the story pans out in the end.
6/10