I can't recommend Miles Davis' Big Fun enough. Bitches Brew is awesome but Big Fun blows it away (even though it's probably not fair to compare the two).

For Miles, you need to get all of the Sony boxed sets and albums of his electric period. That is, last track on Filles de Kilimanjaro thru his "retirement". In addition, get the Miles @ The Isle of Wight DVD. Someone has already mentioned "Big Fun". Hi, if you want to hear chopped up breakbeats played serially, by a REAL DRUMMER, listen to Jack DeJohnette on "Go Ahead, John". You'll never listen to sampled shit the same way again. Also, if you get "Black Beauty" you will hear the most disgustingly beautiful Rhodes sounds ever put to tape.

For Pharaoh Sanders, all of the Impulse stuff is essential. There is also a fair amount of crossover with Sanders and John/Alice Coltrane.

For Coltrane, get all of the Impulse records starting with Ascension. If Kulu Se Mama is before that one, get it, too.

Also get all the Alice Coltrane Impulse records. If you can find the one she did with Carlos Santana, it's amazing.

Santana's "Caravanserai" album is amazing.

Anything by The Mahavishnu Orchestra.

The Sun Ra "Make a Joyful Noise" DVD is ESSENTIAL in your quest to understand him. "Space is the Place" is secondary to that.

Speaking of "second," - second job to pay for all this?

I second the call for the "Isle of Wight" dvd. It's great to see the way Miles drove that band. He just strolls around, sometimes onstage, sometimes off, glides up to the mic and triggers the change, or soloes, or shoots a glance....whatever he wanted to do. I'm a huge fan of the electric Miles bands with DeJohnette on drums.

"Miles Davis Live at the Fillmore East (March 7, 1970)" This cd consists of two sets from the two shows on this date. Miles is opening for the Stevie Miller Band and Neil Young, and this was about a month before "Bitches Brew" was recorded.

"Miles Davis at Fillmore" is another good one. So is "Black Beauty". I like the live stuff.

For Coltrane, look for albums with Rasheed Ali on drums. Of course, "Interstellar Space" is a doozy.

For Sun Ra, I wouldn't start you off buying records. I would start you off by reading John Szwed's excellent biography because that will give you some better context to know if you want to jump in at Supersonic Sounds or work your way back from Purple Night, or start at Atlantis or Magic City and go out to both sides at once.

Ra wanted to reach people with a message, so he made many entry points, custom made for different sorts of earth folk. Concerts were always tailored to the venue, the people and the times, so much so that a concert one night in Montreal could be entirely different in style, reach and genre than a concert the very next evening in Toronto, and that one nothing at all like what might get played in Philadelphia the next week. At the Chicago Arts Centre gig, they played dozens of concerts and workshops, and never repeated an arrangment. There's a common thread and an unmistakable style, and that's the message, but it gets said all sorts of ways.

Another thing to remember about Ra: Monk, Coltrane, Sanders. Mingus and many others all praised Sun Ra, and those are some kick-ass credentials. If you don't get it first try, don't worry, there are dozens of top players that also kidded, derided or just plain didn't get Ra's music until that one magic day when it all made perfect sense.

Albert Alyer and Ornette Coleman.the kings of cocophany. Alyer is like a weird fucking marching band.

Miles Davis' work from 68-75 is all essential. The one I play most is On the Corner. This is the epitome of intense, dark, hypnotic jazz funk and at times you can hear the seeds of drum & bass being sown. The jazz establishment hated it upon release and it still rubs traditionalists the wrong way--all good reasons for you to buy it on every format.

Don Cherry's Brown Rice is also crucial.

You also must track down Joe Henderson's Elements with Alice Coltrane, Pharoah, and Charlie Haden.

Love Cry Want's self-titled CD with organist Larry Young is a total mind-blower. And check out Young's Lawrence of Newark, too.

Remind me to play you Birgé Gorgé Shiroc's Defense De some time.

And I second what Phil @2 said.

More names for you to search, mostly Euro avant-garde/prog/psych shiz:

Magma
Lard Free
Pierrot Lunaire
Franco Battiato
Spacecraft
Heldon
Aphrodite's Child
Igor Wakhevitch

Thanks very much for the insight. I've no idea how I'll pay for all this, I've got a lot of audio urgency and few funds, but I know this is a one step at a time process. Patience, temperance and endurance--right?

Is Pierrot Lunaire a group?it's also an
avant garde opera by Shoenberg and one of the more out there pieces you will hear.good luck,all that Miles,Coltrane(try Sunship too)and Sun Ra will definately stretch your brain

Pierrot Lunaire are an Italian prog group from the 70s. You can read about their best album, Gudrun, here: http://www.progarchives.com/Progressive_rock_discography_CD.asp?cd_id=2907.

From the Village Voice: a Sun Ra consumer guide (with a link also to their Coltrane consumer guide):
http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0623,szwed,73461,22.html

Sun Ra's recorded output can be very erratic, so the recommendation to start with the biography is a good one. There's no way you can discover the breadth of Ra's vision with just a single album.

I saw Sun Ra once at the Backstage in Ballard. Only time I saw that many musicians on that tiny stage, and June Tyson still had room to do her dance routine.

I'm thinking of doing a Magma tribute night sometime soon. On the zeuhl tip it's hard to go wrong with Koenjihyakkei, too.

Second the Ayler recommendation, and why not start at home with John Coltrane's "Live in Seattle" (w/ Pharoah Sanders in the band)? I'd also heartly recommend the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Peter Brötzmann, as well as the meeting point of avant-garde classical and avant-jazz: Anthony Braxton.

I've got serious lists occurring here. Thanks, everyone.