What were the citizens of Trumansburg New York to think when Sun Ra & His Arkestra “touched down” in their quiet town full psychedelic Egyptian regalia?

“It was quiet a spectacle.” former Moog employee Jon Weiss remembers. “He came in his full African dress robes with his entourage into this tiny town. Trumansburg was not used to anything like that.”

At the time, the Minimoog was still in the development phase, but after meeting with Bob Moog and grabbing a scoop of ice cream next door, Sun Ra was able to roll away from the synthesizer factory with a Model B prototype. This was the version with a sloping control panel and a handle that would make for easy transport. You can catch several glimpses of it in action during his 1974 sci-fi film “Space Is The Place.”

At some point, Sun Ra decided to put his experiments with the Model B to tape and the result was a nearly 18-minute long cosmic soujorn called “Space Probe” – an extended and abstract sonic tour of Sun Ra’s inner space that was as far away from the “Switched on Bach” experience most people had with synthesizers at that point. Weiss witnessed just how far the maestro was taking the synth at a club in New York City sometime later.

“Bob said ‘You might want to go down and see how he’s doing with that Mini.’ Whatever was going on that night, (it was like) the signals were coming in from Saturn. That’s how far out the sounds were. I’d never heard anything like that coming from a Minimoog.”

Any concerns that Bob Moog might have had about a pre-patched instrument restricting the creativity of an artist could be quietly laid to rest.