If you are adventurous and have not yet traveled to Planet Sun Ra, here's where you start... Supersonic Jazz. This otherworldly gem from 1958 gives us several reasons to recommend it as Sun Ra Starter:

1) We consider it his most "accessible" album aside from his earlier vocal/big band projects. The melodies are sweet, the instrumentation is playful, and compared to most of his works... less tweaky.

2) Today's "futuristic" music is very electronic and machine-influenced. Most likely it's made on machines. This album, we are certain, set the bar for futuristic jazz at the time... space age music both exciting and loungy. But it's rooted, it has a heart, it's very human. It's human expression reaching out, not recoiling from technology. Sun Ra's piano is only electronic in tone. This music makes you really feel like you are hanging at the bar at the edge of the universe.

3) We like well-presented surprises. For example, 6 or 7 tracks in this huge baritone sax comes out of nowhere and goes SQUUAAANNckK and sounds so entirely natural... we can't believe we didn't know it was coming!! Smooth approach, with guts.

4) "Superblonde".

5) It just sounds thick and rich. Play at full resolution -- do not squeeze THIS into mp3, aac, or whatever. You can really hear the sound of that room spaceship studio trip.