Sun Ra - Media Dreams LP

All the material on Media Dreams comes from live performances from January 1978, when Sun Ra was in Italy with a quartet – Michael Ray, John Gilmore, and Luqman Ali – making recordings for Aldo Sinesio and the Horo label. The trip also included concerts in Rome, Milan and elsewhere; these produced enough recorded material for several Saturn albums, including Media Dream. The exact dates are uncertain; all the musicians were present in Rome as early as January 2nd, when they recorded New Steps for Horo; they were still in Italy on January 23rd, when a concert in Milan resulted in the Saturn LP Disco 3000. These recordings, of which Media Dream is a great example, feature an instrument newly added to Sun Ra's arsenal: the Crumar Mainman. It's a rare keyboard, probably made in small numbers by Crumar, which manufactured synths from the late 1960s until 1984. Martin O'Cuthbert also played the Mainman – he uses it on several recordings from 1979 and 1980: it's described in that context as