Spaceship Lullaby

At first, the notion of Sun Ra dabbling in doo-wop seems incongruous. The pathfinder of avant-garde jazz paired with the dulcet pop of the Flamingos? But as unlikely as it appears, Spaceship Lullaby proves that Ra had more in common with the 1950s vocal groups than one might realize. And after all, Ra was ever in search of stronger interplanetary communication, and what music is more celestial than doo-wop? This collection brings together recordings he made with several vocal groups during his time in Chicago in the early Fifties. The proceedings range from the strange to the sweet, with most songs presenting a combination of the two. There is the bizarre-yet-charming civic anthem “Chicago USA,” the off-the-cuff takes on standards like “Honeysuckle Rose” and the Gershwins’ “A Foggy Day,” and the mesmerizing vocal patterns of “Honey.” Follow the shapeshifting melodies of “Holiday for Strings,” the jumpy rhythms of “Spaceship Lullaby,” and the exotic percussion of “Africa” and you can begin to trace the sounds that would become hallmark’s of Ra’s style in the years to come. Spaceship Lullaby works as both an eccentric composer’s tribute to the reverberant tones of doo-wop, and a fascinating glimpse into the early working methods (listen to Ra experiment with chord voicings on “Blue Moon”) of one of jazz’s most enigmatic minds.