Dreaming of the Masters

Moon Dance is from Sun Ra's 1967 LP Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy, which was actually recorded in 1963 but for some unknown reason not released until '67.  The album is generally thought to have anticipating both psychedelia and the funk of later musicians such as George Clinton.  

Moon Dance is basically a vehicle for Sun Ra to jam out on a Hammond B-3, with Ronnie Boykins on bass and Marshall Allen, John Gilmore and James Jacson on drums and percussion. According to legend, Moon Dance was recorded at 10:00 in the morning at the Tip Top club in Brooklyn, a "low-ceilinged, vinyl-signed dive in the southwest elbow of Bed-Stuy," according to Colin Stokes in The New Yorker: 

"The walls are lovingly covered with images of the outgoing President: he’s smiling on a clock next to a watermark of Martin Luther King, Jr.; speaking at a lectern with a “Change We Can Believe In” sign above him; and, slightly less convincing, alongside Michelle, in an advertisement for a “first couple farewell sculpture,” a hand-painted porcelain number standing eleven inches tall. Tip Top’s drinks are simple and generous—a beer-and-shot special is five dollars . . . Aunt Sally’s Kitchen (operated from a window in the back of the bar) . . . serves delicious fish-and-chips whose appetizing scent floats intermittently through the air. An old-school jukebox . . . played a string of pop and soul classics, and, at the end of the evening, people walked out of the warm and familiar room and into the cold and unwelcoming winter night."

There's some question as to whether or not the Tip Top of 1963 is the same watering hole as today.  Current owner Linda Greer said her father Walter “Junior” Alston opened the Tip Top as a social club for men in the 1970s. “It was just a hangout for the neighborhood men,” Linda said. “They had two pool tables in here. And they would bring their drinks in and drink and, you know. It was like a little hangout spot.” Before he turned it into a social club, Tip Top was reportedly a supermarket. 

The Tip Top today (Google street view)

Either the Tip Top opened even earlier than Linda's recollection, or her father had owned another club with the same name before moving to Bed Stuy, or else some other club once operated under the same name. The latter would not be surprising, as there was once a Brooklyn Tip-Tops baseball team owned by Robert Ward of the Ward Baking Company, who named the team after the Tip-Top bread that was a mainstay of the Wards' baking business. The Tip-Tops played in Washington Park, which had been abandoned by the Dodgers after the completion of Ebbets Field.  None of this has anything to do with Sun Ra, but we're just saying that the name "Tip Top" has a long association with Brooklyn, and that in 1963 there might have been any number of places called Tip-Top in which Moon Dance might have been recorded.

Whatever the case, back in 1963, Tommy Hunter of the Sun Ra Arkestra was moonlighting with the Sarah McLawler Trio at some place that called itself "The Tip Top," and the club was allowing Sun Ra free access to its B-3 during the day. 

Picture a '60s nightclub in the early morning hours, possibly just a few hours after it had finally closed, still smelling like booze and stale cigarette smoke, dust motes dancing in the low-angle sunlight that filters in though the front window and reveals all of the seamy details that aren't noticeable at night.  Sounds of daytime traffic and neighborhood kids playing in the street can be heard from outside, and there's a drum kit, a stand-up bass and an old Hammond organ sitting unused on the stage.  A strangely dressed group of men enter the club and, blinking, look around as their eyes adjust to the interior light.  One of them lifts up the bass and starts playing and someone else switches on a reel-to-reel and starts recording.  Soon others join in on drums and various other percussion instruments laying around, and then the apparent leader of the odd group starts playing the B-3.

Moon Dance sounds just that spontaneous, loose, and improvised, especially the percussion.  The album notes credit saxophonists Allen and Gilmore with "astro space drums" and "sky drums," and percussionist Jacson with "log drums," whatever all of those are. Tommy Hunter says that he remembers some neighborhood kids running in from the street during the recording and shouting, "These guys don't know how to play!"