Bad and Beautiful is an album by the American Jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 musician Sun Ra

Sun Ra

Sun Ra was a prolific jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his "cosmic philosophy," musical compositions and performances. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama...

 and his Arkestra. Recorded in 1961 in New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 at the Choreographers' Workshop, 414 W. 51st St., the album was the second to be recorded in New York by the Arkestra after leaving Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, but would remain unreleased until 1972. The album is considered to represent an important transition between the big band approach of the Chicago recordings, and the more 'outside' approach of Ra's smaller bands recorded later in the decade;

'Aside from "Exotic Two," the tunes are split between standards (apparently the last ones the group would record until the '70s) and blues originals, but there are indications of the direction the Arkestra would take throughout the '60s. "Search Light Blues" has some interesting percussion accents finding their way into the arrangement, and "Exotic Two" alludes more clearly to the percussion-heavy sound that dominated many of the '60s recordings. Sun Ra plays piano exclusively on this recording, and Gilmore gets lots of room to shine. A significant transitional LP, this is probably the last "inside" record the Arkestra would record as they forged new sonic paths into the mid-'60s.' Sean Westergaard, All Music Guide [ link]

According to Ra's biographer, John F Szwed, the album announced that Ra was 'now in New York' , with its inclusion of the theme music from the film The Bad and the Beautiful

The Bad and the Beautiful

The Bad and the Beautiful is a 1952 MGM melodramatic film that tells the story of a film producer who alienates all around him. It was directed by Vincente Minelli and stars Lana Turner, Kirk Douglas, Walter Pidgeon, Dick Powell, Barry Sullivan, Gloria Grahame and Gilbert Roland. The film was...

, and its Broadway show tunes And This Is My Beloved

And This Is My Beloved

"And This Is My Beloved" is a popular song.It was from the 1953 musical Kismet and is credited to Robert Wright and George Forrest. Like all the music in that show, the melody was in fact based on music composed by Alexander Borodin, in this case, Borodin's String Quartet in D.The same melody had...

and Just In Time

Just in Time (song)

"Just in Time" is a popular song with the melody written by Jule Styne and the lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. The song was published in 1956....

.

The record has been re-released by Impulse! in 1974, and again by Evidence in 1992, this time on a Compact Disc

Compact Disc

The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...

 coupled with We Travel The Space Ways

We Travel the Space Ways

We Travel the Space Ways is an album by the American Jazz musician Sun Ra and his Myth Science Arkestra. Recorded mostly in 1960, the album was released in 1967, on Sun Ra's own label Saturn. The album brings together a number of eras and personnel of the Arkestra, and was probably mostly recorded...

.

12" Vinyl

Side A:

1. Bad And The Beautiful (Previn-Raksin) - (2.46)
2. Ankh (Ra) - (5.11)
3. Just In Time (Styne-Comden-Green) - (3.49)
4. Search Light Blues (Ra) - (5.39)

Side B:

1. Exotic Two (Ra) - (4.47)
2. On The Blue Side (Ra) - (5.29)
3. And This Is My Beloved (Borodin-Wright-Forrest) - (3.16)

Musicians

• Sun Ra - Piano
• Pat Patrick - Baritone Sax, Percussion
• John Gilmore
  John Gilmore (musician)
  John Gilmore was an American jazz tenor saxophone player best-known for his long tenure as a member of Sun Ra's Arkestra...
  
   - Tenor Sax
• Marshall Allen
  Marshall Allen
  Marshall Belford Allen is an American free jazz and avant-garde jazz alto saxophone player. He also performs on flute, oboe, piccolo, and EVI ....
  
   - Alto Sax, Flute
• Ronnie Boykins
  Ronnie Boykins
  Ronnie Boykins was a jazz bassist and is best known for his work with pianist/bandleader Sun Ra, although he had played with such disparate musicians as Muddy Waters, Johnny Griffin, and Jimmy Witherspoon prior to joining Sun Ra's Arkestra.-Biography:He joined the Arkestra during the Chicago...
  
  - Bass
• Tommy Hunter - Drums, Percussion

Recorded entirely at the Choreographer's Workshop, New York (the Arkestra's rehearsal space) in either November or December 1961 .