It’s a new year and the same old us. If the idea of the Arkestra dabbling in superhero soundtracks doesn’t get you going, we just can’t help.
Our first Sunday Classic for 2026 finds us all back in 1966 (another cosmically linked Fire Horse year if any of you are tracking such things) and a session arranged by iconic producer Tom Wilson, largely to cash in on the Batman craze that was in full swing thanks to Adam West and Burt Ward’s hugely popular TV turns as Batman and Robin.
Two things of particular note. Firstly, ‘The Sensational Guitars of Dan and Dale’ were not a real group, there is in fact little to suggest that there was either a Dan or a Dale amongst any of the musicians involved in the twenty or so albums credited to the group. Besides this album, very few of the musicians are actually publicly credited, Batman and Robin being a notable exception, and for good reason.
Secondly, Sun Ra is absolutely on this album, swirling up waves on the Hammond B3 organ, but his involvement was purely circumstantial. Wilson had invited members of The Blues Project to play on the session. According to the band’s keyboardist, Al Kooper, the group wasn’t told in advance about the "Batman" theme - they were just hired to show up, play, and get paid. Blues Project guitarists Danny Kalb and Steve Katz, bassist Andy Kulberg, and drummer Roy Blumenfeld turned up, but Kooper declined. Sun Ra was Al Kooper's replacement, that simple. Arkestra saxophonists John Gilmore and Pat Patrick were also involved alongside other session pros who joined the date. The rest is… well, a slightly weird novelty album mostly lost to the annals of time.
It’s really good fun. I mean, it’s all pretty silly stuff, mostly short tracks that fade in and fade out like psychedelic fever dreams. Loads of reverb, rock ’n’ roll punch, Sun Ra’s organ giving it plenty of wooze and a studio-full of boinks, springs and harmonica wails. Besides the iconic theme, if you think you’ve heard this before, you likely have in one way or another. Robert L. Campbell and Christopher Trent (in the book The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra) explain “nearly all of the music on this album was plundered from various sources. 'Batman’s Batmorang' uses the slow movement of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony; 'Penguin’s Umbrella' takes over Chopin’s A-flat polonaise; 'Batman and Robin Swing' is based on the love theme from Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet; and 'Batmobile Wheels' makes do with Bach’s Minuet in G, already recycled as 'A Lover's Concerto' by the Toys. 'The Riddler’s Retreat' lifts its guitar licks from 'She Loves You' by the Beatles.”
It is worth pointing out that I love Tom Wilson’s work in that period, I love Sun Ra and I REALLY love camp sixties Batman, so this is something of a dream project for me, but I do highly recommend that if you can find 30 minutes in your busy Sunday for a sojourn into a much groovier time, Batman and Robin is a proper joy. I love the idea that a young comic-book fan might have been gifted this curiosity in the mid-sixties, and that it could have sparked a journey into the world of Ra. Holy session players Batman! They just don’t make them like this anymore.