The album Angels And Demons At Play was compiled from two different sessions, recorded four years apart (1956 and 1960), that reflect Sun Ra's evolution from hard Chicago bop towards exotic styles that transcended easy categorization. The album was released in 1965 with a distinctive sleeve design by Sun Ra, featuring an identical illustration on both sides, and no sleeve notes. Besides the leader, there's overlapping personnel at the two sessions, yet the two LP sides were somewhat incongruous, demonstrating how much the Arkestra had evolved in four years.

Side A (tracks 1–4) consists of four performances from the marathon 1960 Chicago recording session that produced dozens of tracks released over the subsequent decade on a series of Saturn releases. Two idiosyncratic works, "Tiny Pyramids" and the title track (the latter featuring a flute solo by Marshall Allen), were composed by bassist Ronnie Boykins. "Between Two Worlds," a Sun Ra original, is a short, springy cha-cha. The colorfully abstract "Music From The World Tomorrow," featuring Sun Ra on Cosmic Tone Organ and Phil Cohran on "violin-uke," is the album's revelation — a short "sound experiment" rather than a composition, hinting more than any work on the collection Sunny's future direction.

The B-side of the album (tracks 5–8) goes back to the 1956 first Arkestra sessions, featuring Sunny's emerging "Hard Space Bop." The work is solid, and representative of the foundational years of the Sun Ra legacy. Three of the tracks had been released as singles by Saturn.

The respective sides document two early periods of Sun Ra's musical trajectory. But by the time the album was released in 1965, neither side accurately reflected what Sun Ra was offering fans on the concert stage or on new album releases, much less where his music would head as the decade continued to unfold. Compare Angels and Demons to the albums Strange Strings (recorded 1965) and Atlantis (recorded 1967-68), which sonically and stylistically are, as Sun Ra might say, "from another planet."

1 - 2 recorded at either Hall Recording Company or RCA Studios, Chicago, June 1960

PERSONNEL Tracks One and Two - Angels and Demonds at Play / Between Two Worlds:
Sun Ra: piano, Cosmic Tone Organ, percussion
Phil Cohran: trumpet (1)
Nate Pryor (1) and Bo Bailey (2): trombone
John Gilmore: tenor sax (1, 2,), clarinet (1,)
Marshall Allen: alto sax (2), flute (1)
Ronnie Boykins: bass
Jon Hardy: drums (1)
Robert Barry: drums (2)
Art Hoyle: trumpet
Pat Patrick: baritone sax
Julian Priester: trombone
Wilburn Green: bass
Jim Herndon: tympani

The complete album by Sun Ra ; Angels And Demons At Play has been released by Sun Ra LLC { sunramusic.bandcamp.com/album/angels-demons-at-play }
All titles composed by Sun Ra © Enterplanetary Koncepts (BMI)

PERSONNEL: Track 3 - Spontaneous Simplicity
Sun Ra: piano, Clavioline
Marshall Allen: alto sax, flute, piccolo, percussion
Danny Davis: alto sax, flute, alto clarinet, percussion
Danny Ray Thompson: alto sax, percussion
John Gilmore: tenor sax, percussion
Pat Patrick: baritone sax, flute, percussion
Robert Northern: French horn
Bernard Pettaway: trombone
Ali Hassan: trombone
Teddy Nance: trombone
Robert Cummings: bass clarinet, percussion
Ronnie Boykins: bass
Clifford Jarvis: drums
Lex Humphries: drums
Nimrod Hunt [Carl S. Malone]: hand drums
James Jacson: Ihnfinity (log) drum

All tracks produced by Sun Ra, recorded 1966
All titles composed by Sun Ra © Enterplanetary Koncepts (BMI)

Tape transfers by Michael D. Anderson of the Sun Ra Music Archive
Digital restoration by Michael D. Anderson and Irwin Chusid

Issued under license from Sun Ra LLC