Eclectic, outrageous, sometimes mystifying but always imbued
with a powerful jazz consciousness, the music of Sun Ra has withstood its
skeptics and detractors for nearly three generations. And well it should,
since Sun Ra has been both apart of and ahead of the jazz tradition during
that time. Like Duke Ellington and swing-era pioneer Fletcher Henderson,
Sun Ra learned early on to write music in an arranged form that showcased
the specific talents of his individual Arkestra members, and he has retained
the services of some of these musicians to this day: John Gilmore, Marshall
Allen, and Julian Priester for example since they first joined in the 1950's.
On the other hand, Sun Ra was the first jazz musician to perform on electronic
keyboards (56), the first to pursue full-scale collective improvisation
in a big band setting, and his preoccupation with space travel as a compositional
subject predated bands like Weather Report by about 15 years.All this from
someone who refuses to even cite the earth as his home planet and prefers
to have arrived from Saturn. As Sun Ra once explained it, "I never wanted
to be a part of planet Earth, but I am compelled to be here, so anything
I do for this planet is because the Master-Creator of the Universe is making
me do it. I am of another dimension. I am on this planet because people
need me".
Equally as mystifying is the fact that Sun Ra has no legal birth certificate.
The Library of Congress claims that he arrived in Alabama, U.S.A., and
his passport states that his legal name is Le Sony'r Ra, thus making all
other names such as Sonny Lee, Sunni Bhlount, Armand Ra, and H. Sonne Bhlount
merely pseudonyms.
In the 1940's Sun Ra became the house arranger for stage shows at the
famous Chicago night spot, the Club DeLisa and played for the band led
by Fletcher Henderson. Henderson was the arranger for the Benny Goodman
Orquestra as well as his own and was a great inspiration to Ra who encouraged
him to continue writing. In the early 50's, Ra's more radical compositions
and arrangements found their way into his own groups which featured exotic
costumes and unusual instruments.
By 1955 while in Chicago, Le Sony'r Ra had become "Le Sun Ra" or Sun
Ra, leader of the Solar Arkestra which has also been known by many other
names such as the Myth-Science Arkestra, the Solar Myth Arkestra, and the
Omniverse Arkestra. In addition to saxophonists Gilmore and Allen, the
band boasted a number of musicians who have contributed much to jazz, including
bassist Richard Davis, trombonist Julian Priester, drummer Clifford Jarvis,
and reedman James Spaulding. The Arkestra itself started as what was thought
to be a hard-bop big band at the Grand Terrace and Birdland night clubs
- a rare enough item - but soon was incorporating free improvisation. As
such, it was a major influence on the emerging avant-garde jazz musicians
in Chicago, such as Muhal Richard Abrams, Henry Threadgill, and the Art
Ensemble of Chicago.
From its inception, the Arkestra's music was infused with Sun Ra's unique
philosophy, an unexpected hybrid of space-age science fiction and ancient
Egyptian cosmo religious trappings. This philosophy gained a visual manifestation
in the colorful robes, mock-metallic capes, and space headgear worn by
the band (it's the only jazz orchestra that brings a tailor on tour), and
in a stage presentation that usually features several dancers, a number
of group chants ("We travel the spaceways/From planet to planet"), and
at least one instance of the entire band juking its way, single-file, through
the audience.
In 1960, Sun Ra moved his earthbound base of operations to New York,
then in 1968 settled in Philadelphia. In both cities, as in Chicago, the
band lived and worked as a sort of collective, with the hard-core nucleus
sharing living quarters with the leader and assuming the role of cosmo-friends
to the master. Throughout the 60's Sun Ra continued to record for his own
deliberately poorly distributed Saturn Records label, and also on various
European labels, while touring widely and continuing to spread the fame
of his live performances. In recent years Sun Ra has steadily returned
to the music of the near past - the standards and jazz classics he grew
up with - although it is all filtered through his delighfully off center
perspective.
In an interview with Jazziz magazine, Sun Ra recalled, "They really
thought I was some kind of kook with all my talk about outer space and
the planets. I'm still talking about it, but governments are spending billions
of dollars to go to Venus, Mars, and other planets, so it's no longer kooky
to talk about space". For Sun Ra, though, it has never been a matter of
mere oddness. When he talks of his Saturnian origins, of observing the
planets and travelling the spaceways, and of "going into space", it is
really a lavishly elaborated metaphor, or so it seems to those who are
not aware of the spiritual side of things. Sun Ra's music transcends earthbound
limitations by riding the flights of imagination, and his message is that
all of us are free to ride those flights with him if we have the precision
and discipline to do so.
