Music Arcades: Sun Ra: Calling Planet Earth

Do you ever get that feeling where, despite a life spent listening to music for hours a day, you feel you're still hopelessly inadequate at it — even when you try hard? I do. Quite a lot.

Especially round people like Sun Ra. I've read and heard so many describing his music in terms that sounded so enthralling I could barely resist. One such instance was in the Recommended Records mail order catalogue, eleven or twelve years ago, where the detailed notes for some items were a kind of precursor to music blogs: clearly the work of a passionate enthusiast driven more by love, and the desire to share love of music, than by the desire to make a sale.

Thus the description of this 3-CD collection was so vivid that my desire to purchase became irresistible. That little bit along the lines of "finally back in stock, on import, highly limited"… that might have clinched it, as well.

And then the realisation that my experience of Sun Ra's music was distinctly less vivid. Not that I didn't like it, but that I felt an outsider, looking in, rather than a participant. (An alien on Saturn, I guess you could say.) Hence my sense of failure.

But I persist. I keep investing time and attention. I still feel the promise, drawing me back to try again. I guess the day that I find that I can fully grasp and appreciate every kind of music that the world throws my way will be the day I stop listening.