John Gilmore Interview - The Wire July 1985

Val Wilmer, whose photographs have appeared in several Sun Ra releases, interviewed John Gilmore for the July 1985 issue of The Wire.  Some time later, the Hinds brothers printed and bound it for their Sun Ra Research project.

Images

Sun Ra - Space Poetry and The Immeasurable Equation

In celebration of the 99th anniversary of Sun Ra's arrival on our Earthly plane.

Sun Ra’s wordplay, poetry, and language equations are as entertaining and thought provoking as his music and all seem to be parts of the same creation/presentation. I don’t think you can fully appreciate Sun Ra's music without also considering this poetry as an element of the grand equation.

With this in mind I would like to share not only the recordings below but what is perhaps my most treasured piece of Sun Ra ephemera, the small self-published volume of The Immeasurable Equation originally sold at Arkestra concerts around 1980.  This particular edition includes 81 poems on as many pages, printed on the rainbow's envy of colored construction paper.

Strange Worlds in My Mind

The Sub Dwellers

The Outer Darkness

The Immeasurable Equation (1980)

pdf
FF


"My Music is Words" - The Poetics of Sun Ra
by Nathaniel Earl Bowles (2008)


In addition, don't miss out on Charles Blass' 6-hour Arrival Day celebration:
OMNIVERSE MYSTERY NINETY-NINE INFINITY

Ray Manzarek (The Doors) speaks of Ra (1967)

Here is a short excerpt from an interview with members of The Doors that appeared in 'Mojo Navigator' (no. 14, April, 1967, page 13).  The Doors were in NYC during November, 1966, last two weeks of January, 1967, and the last two weeks of March, 1967.  Who knows when they saw Sun Ra?

It looks like Ra was playing all around NYC in those days.  Here's what I learned while browsing through The Earthly Recordings: 

• The Batman & Robin sessions were in January
• There were the regular Monday night gigs at Slugs 
• The College Tour that gave us 'Nothing Is…' was in early May, 1966  
• Two concerts at The Beacon Theatre on Oct 11, 1966 
• 'The Magic Sun' was probably filmed during 1966
• Live tracks from 'Outer Spaceways Incorporated' and 'Pictures of Infinity' were also recorded around this time.

Many THANKS to I-) for sharing this with us!

Hanging out with the man from Saturn

I stumbled across this great blog entry; some great pics and the story gets better after the jump.

Hanging out with the man from Saturn

Several people have asked me to tell the story of my encounters with Sun Ra.

Over a span of about six or seven years, I caught Sun Ra and his Arkestra in Boston at least eleven times. While that’s not a lot by Deadhead standards, it’s probably more than I’ve seen any other musician live, with the exception of the great khyal singer Bhimsen Joshi.

To an alienated, jazz-obsessed teenager in Boston’s western suburbs, the knowledge that there was a bandleading madman who claimed to be from outer space was incredibly welcome. My high school library maintained subscriptions to a wide variety of periodicals — the usual suspects (Time, Newsweek, Life), some slightly more unconventional choices (The New Yorker, Ms.), and a few that were pretty bizarre. Of these last, there were three that made a huge impression on me: The Village Voice (where I first read about conceptual art, Nam June Paik and Charlotte Moorman), Source: Music of the Avant-Garde (where I first heard of Cornelius Cardew, Christo, Steve Reich and Alvin Lucier), and Downbeat (where I kept up to date on all the latest jazz happenings, and where I first learned of the existence of Sun Ra).

It was during my junior year in high school that I found out Sun Ra and the Arkestra would be performing for a solid week of gigs at Paul’s Mall in downtown Boston. Of course I was completely ineligible to go and spend hours in a jazz bar; I was fifteen. But I went anyway, and got to the club at least an hour before showtime. I was the first audience member to arrive, and somehow managed to talk my way through the bouncer. I’d brought my camera, a noisy Miranda SLR loaded with Tri-X black & white film which I “pushed” to ASA 1600 (wow! archaic darkroom talk!).

The first night I took pictures; two or three rolls’ worth. The following day I developed them at school (and went into Boston to hear the Arkestra again), and the day after that I printed them and took a sheaf of prints into Paul’s Mall, where I showed them to the musicians. Sun Ra was pleased, and autographed one of the photographs with a ball-point pen: “Space Age Greetings from Sun Ra,” with the date. Alas, the ink has faded on the photograph and can no longer be read.

The band was promoting their releases on Impulse!, particularly “Space is the Place.” There was quite a bit of that material presented at Paul’s Mall. Some elements were the same from night to night; they always played “Shadow World,” and there was always some sort of extended synthesizer solo from Sun Ra. And there was a lot of great soloing. Having the entire band crowded onto the tiny stage at Paul’s Mall was a triumph of space management.

After that? Not much Sun Ra for a few years, although I continued to buy records and had quite a good collection by the time I moved into Somerville to share an apartment with two friends in 1977. Which was the year that Sun Ra’s Arkestra played the Cyclorama, a huge circular hall in Boston’s South End that was a superb venue for their brand of outer-space theater.

I persuaded about four or five of my hippie friends to come, and we bought tickets for the second of two sets. Which was the right thing to do: the first set lasted two hours. The second set lasted four, and concluded in the wee hours of the morning with a massive drumming session that featured a number of dancers and a fire-eater who blew huge spheres of flame into the air while the band roared and pounded. One of my roommates had ingested a powerful psychoactive substance which was at the peak of its influence at this point; I turned to look at him and was rewarded by a facial expression: mouth gaping in amazement, eyes wide open with pupils the size of quarters.

I didn’t meet Sun Ra that time. We went home, completely blown away.

Ahhh, but the next time Sun Ra came to town, I was ready.

(Continue reading at Warren Senders' blog)

Radioactivity and the Outskirts of the Universe

 

WKCR Sun Ra Festival Poster 1987

Philadelphia 1984

This is likely the Halloween show.  Via Sugarmegs.  Thanks to Ritzbird for the heads up!

Many THANKS to Marc E.  If anyone would like to share any recordings from these performances, I would love to hear them.

Picture Infinity: Marshall Allen & The Sun Ra Arkestra

 

I highly recommend this wonderful book.  The small, hardcover edition is filled with candid photos of the Arkestra and includes a fair number of brief articles, each well written and interesting.  My copy arrived two weeks ago and each time I pick it up, I find myself savoring every page.  Perhaps the best purchase I've made this year.

Picture Infinity: Marshall Allen & The Sun Ra Arkestra
Sibylle Zerr
152 pages, paperback
ISBN: 978-3-00-035497-7
Self Published
2011

Half a dozen books covering the life, times and music of enigmatic big band leader Sun Ra have appeared since his death in 1993, aged 79. Detailed biography, collections of interviews, early writings, poetry and street corner pamphlets give substantial insight into his artistic and philosophical roots. Weightier, academic tomes have studied the impact of jazz's most prolific composer on American history and culture.

What these studies have in common—and the very thing that sets Sibylle Zerr's book apart—is that they tend to treat Sun Ra's death as the end of the line, a full stop in the history of the Arkestra, the big band Ra formed in the early 1950s. But as Zerr relates, the band barely paused for breath, continuing under tenor saxophonist John Gilmore until he passed away two years later in 1995. And for the past 17 years the Sun Ra Arkestra has continued to plot its unique course under the leadership of alto saxophonist Marshall Allen.

Zerr—a cultural anthropologist and journalist—has been following Sun Ra's Arkestra since 2003, and brings something of an insider's view into the workings of the big band, and, by extension, the continuing, self-perpetuating legacy of Sun Ra.

At 152 pages, of which 86 are photographs, this is neither a comprehensive history of Sun Ra's Arkestra, nor of Allen. Instead, Zerr weaves the observations and thoughts of Allen and current Arkestra members into the text of carefully crafted essays. A number of Sun Ra's colorful quotations and philosophical utterances-cum-poetry serve as a backdrop to these thoughts and Zerr's own insightful observations. These threads combine to create a vivid picture of a unique musical institution, one sustained by the musical vision and enduring myth of Sun Ra.

"I'm actually painting pictures of infinity with my music," Ra said in 1970, "that's why a lot of people can't understand it." What many people couldn't understand was Ra's esoteric cosmic philosophy, his claim to have been born on Saturn, his self-created myth, and the Arkestra's dressing-up in sequined robes that are part-Pharonic and part-Flash Gordon props. This mixture of Egyptology, cosmology, Afro-Futurism and the neo-hippy message of love and peace probably caused way more confusion than the sweeping musical reach of Ra's Arkestra. Zerr, as an unabashed acolyte, rationalizes this aspect of the Arkestra's personality in relatively convincing terms.

The colorful regalia and seemingly New Age universal view partly explains the Arkestra's continuing cult following, but it also underlines—though not intentionally on the author's part—why Sun Ra remains something of a controversial figure. It's almost impossible to consider Sun Ra's music without the image, myth and countless space metaphors getting in the way. Zerr states—without the slightest hint of irony—"Until today, the musical genius of Sun Ra is clouded in an astral nebula of misunderstanding." Ra, however, was not without a sense of humor, once informing President Richard Nixon he had "24 hours to get off the planet."

In the Arkestra's personal idiom band members are not born but "arrive" on the planet and later "depart." Deceased members are referred to as "ancestors." The Arkestra doesn't arrive for a concert; it "docks" at "4pm terrestrial time." Zerr recounts how some of the Arkestra members believe that current pianist Farid Barron was chosen by Sun Ra, a dozen years after the leader departed. Barron himself says: "I feel that I have been initiated into a sacred fraternal order." Allen's house—and home to Arkestra members since 1968—is called The Ark.

The real strength of the book lies in Zerr's vivid descriptions of the Arkestra on stage and her astute comparisons between Ra's dictatorial running of the band and Allen's more accommodating—though no less focused—approach. This provides a very real sense of the Arkestra's evolution and continuing growth. The musicians' devotion to Ra's musical ethos leaps off the pages and will convince even the most skeptical reader that this is no ghost band, but a thriving organism.

Whilst Zerr refers to the tremendous breadth and almost unparalleled scope of the Arkestra's music, interestingly, the Arkestra members do not readily identify with the term "free jazz": "Sun Ra did not like the word freedom," explains trombonist Tyrone Hill. "He liked discipline. It takes a lot of discipline to play this music. You have to know when to play it free and when not to." 

(continue reading at All About Jazz)

Sun Ra - The Summer of '76

Our good friend, Roberto T sent the following concert review and personal photographs of the Arkestra's 1976 visit to Antibes.  It occurred to me that we have some pretty amazing material recorded while Sun Ra and the Arkestra toured Europe during the Summer of '76 and I thought it would be nice to see it all gathered together under a single post.

Click to enlarge

Montreux Jazz Festival

From Transparency 0172 DVD:  Sun Ra Volume 3

Live at Montreux
Recorded July 9, 1976
Montreux Jazz Festival, Switzerland

Visit the Original Post for new links!

The excellent Live at Montreux set from 1976 was released on vinyl by both Saturn and Inner City before disappearing from print for many years. In 2003, the set was reissued by both Universe/Akarma and P-Vine. A full 20-member Arkestra (plus dancers) turns in a typically freewheeling set. From "Take the 'A' Train" (featuring a killer solo from Marshall Allen), to the gospel-influenced "El Is a Sound of Joy," to the almost exotica "Lights on a Satellite," to the free and raucous "Gods of the Thunder Realm," and on to "We Travel the Spaceways," the Arkestra covers as much musical territory in this set as anyone would expect from a live Sun Ra show. This is considered to be another classic in a vast discography. [Completists take note: the Universe edition inexplicably fades out the last four minutes of "On Sound Infinity Spheres," which are present on the P-Vine edition.] 

AMG Review by Sean Westergaard

A short video recorded the following day in Pescara, Italy
July 10, 1976

Cosmos
Recorded August 1976
Paris, France

Visit the Original Post for new links!

First issued in France on Cobra COB 37001, Cosmos, in 1976.  Also issued shortly thereafter on Musicdistribution 600005 and Inner City IC 1020.  All tracks reissued in France on Buda 82479 [CD] in 1991; unfortunately, Bunn's electric bass is mixed too loud on this reissue.  Information from the album jacket.  The band had to be reduced in size because of the smallness of the studio (Vincent Chancey).  According to Buzelin and Hardy's 1979 discography, the Arkestra recorded an (unissued) album's worth of Duke Ellington tunes the same day.  Abdullah, however, says this report is incorrect.

233. [200] Sun Ra
COSMOS

Sun Ra (Rocksichord); Ahmed Abdullah (tp); Craig Harris (tb); Vincent Chancey (Fr hn); Marshall Allen (as, fl); Danny Davis (as, fl); John Gilmore (ts); Danny Ray Thompson (bars, fl); Eloe Omoe (bcl, fl); James Jacson (fl, bsn); R. Anthony Bunn (cb); Larry Bright (d).

Studio Hautefeuille, Paris, August 1976

from Campbell / Trent  The Earthly Recordings 2nd ed.