Live at the Hackney Empire

by Don Snowden

　　Live At The Hackney Empire may be the definitive latter-day Sun Ra recording for a couple of reasons. First, it's a full two-and-a-half hour concert on two CDs, so you get the actual flow Sun Ra programmed into his performance to showcase the different musical facets of the Arkestra -- swirling cosmic outbursts, swing-era big band, vocal chants rooted in Africa by way of Saturn. (Amazingly, there's hardly any duplication of material from the concert the night before with a dozen-odd French symphony musicians that Leo released as Pleiades).