On The Launch Pad

Robert Frosch, head honcho at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration from 1977 to 1981, wrote that at cocktail parties he was sometimes asked whether NASA had some gizmo or other that had recently been brought to fictional life in a sci-fi book or movie. If Frosch's answer was "No," the next question was usually, "Are you going to get one?" To which Frosch's answer, a truthful one, was often, "We're working on it."

The relationship between real-world science and science fiction is as symbiotic as Frosch's story suggests, and that is reflected in the ten albums featured in this article. A few are simply acknowledgments of the real-world "space race," with no fictional or speculative dimension. Others are imaginative tours de force, sci-fi artifacts in their own right. Some reference space rockets and space exploration, others are strictly earthbound, albeit looking for an alternative reality in which humankind might enjoy a more fulfilling existence. One or two tacitly posit the existence of those legendary little green persons, or rather, their real-world possibility.

Interestingly, most sci-fi has been created by writers and filmmakers who use it to advance ideas of freedom and democracy. During the brief period of artistic freedom that followed the Russian revolution of 1917, for instance, sci-fi boomed, only to be corralled once the despot Stalin came to power. In the West, sci-fi has often been created as an antidote to reactionary, narrowly nationalistic beliefs. Sci-fi is by its nature left-leaning, internationalist and countercultural, which makes it an ideal bedmate for jazz, in much the same way that jazz and Afro-Futurism are compatible.

Anyway, here are ten albums that are in the same orbit, one way or another, of sci-fi as we know it. The first was released in 1958, the most recent in 2023. Sci-fi connections apart, they are all high-altitude jazz, their cover art, and usually their musical content also, boldly going where no jazz had gone before.

The albums are listed in chronological order of release.

May the Force be with you.

Curtis Counce Suits Up And Goes Walkies

Curtis Counce
Exploring The Future
Dootone
1958

Back in the late 1950s, jazz was part of popular entertainment and the news cycle to a degree that is only a shadowy memory in 2024. When the USSR launched the space race with the first Sputnik in fall 1957, jazz was quick to respond. A handful of albums, released in 1958, had cover art, track titles and, in some cases, musical content, that celebrated the event. By contrast, pop music was way behind the curve. Its first significant space-age release was British beat combo the Tornados' "Telstar," a salute to the eponymous US satellite launched in summer 1962.

The best of 1958's space-age jazz albums—or more precisely, album covers—is