Sun Ra's Queer Notions

Sun Ra loved to occasionally pay homage to our heroes. Heroes, in this case, includes important African American bandleaders and musicians in earlier epochs of jazz. Fletcher Henderson, whose "Queer Notions" is a rather strange composition, would have smiled had he heard this lively rendition from Sun Ra in the 1980. Sun Ra's cover is a bit funkier but captures that joyful, celebratory quality in swing that Henderson brought to the fore. Perhaps the contradictions of the song, alluded to by its title, capture the modalities of modern living.