SUN RA--The Man From Saturn
Apr 11 '01
The Bottom Line Sun Ra was an awesomely talented musician and composer
Describing a Sun Ra Arkestra concert to someone who has never seen one or who has never even heard the group is a near impossible task. How do you explain sex to a virgin? Or an LSD trip to someone who has never taken one? The Sun Ra Arkestra is every bit as heavy as both of the above. For my money, the century just ended gave us no composer or orchestra that matched his/their brilliance.
I suppose some background is in order. Sun Ra claimed to hail from Saturn and he embodied and espoused a highly personal cosmic spirituality in his music and poetry. Some, like his mortal sisters, claim that he was born Herman "Sonny" Blount in Alabama and later adopted the Sun Ra Myth. As is usually the case, the truth probably resides somewhere in-between. Certainly not everything he said should be taken literally, just as the same as can be said about the parables of Jesus. Both men dealt in metaphoric as well as literal truths, and to say that Ra was merely a showman--and he was a consummate showman--is to miss the point entirely.
So, the young Ra/Blount learned to play piano and kicked around the Alabama jazz scene until there was no challenge left for him there, then left for Chicago in the late forties and wrote arrangements for the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra. In the early 1950s he put together the first version of the Arkestra, a group which continues today under the direction of saxophonist Marshall Allen, whose tenure with the group dates back to the very beginning. The group would later move to the East Village (where, significantly, John Coltrane studied with him shortly before making his most avant garde statements) and, ultimately, to Philadelphia where they are still based.
Their music was different from day one, and it only became more singular as the ensemble became more seasoned. For the next four decades Ra and his band were to perform all over the world and record at a dizzying rate. The band recorded over a hundred lps and there are reportedly pages upon pages of Ra compositions that have never been performed and/or recorded.
The amount and variety of music is simply staggering. Ra wrote in every style of jazz imaginable--blues, bebop, big band, avant garde--and, more significantly, in styles that were unimaginable before he came along and are still unmatched. His style borrowed from non jazz sources such as classical music (including the most modern innovtions therein) and exotica as well. He was the first jazz musician to significantly employ electronic keyboards and devices such as the theremin into his songs, and to my mind no one in jazz has really caught up with him yet in this sphere.
Many, no doubt, will object to my claim that Sun Ra was the greatest musician of the century just past. He was far from the only great one--Bartok, Stravinsky, Ellington, Monk, Hendrix are just a few of the 20th century's many great innovators. But none of them left as large and varied a body of work behind (perhaps Stravinsky came closest and Hendrix's tragic early death will always leave unaswered questions about what he could have accomplished). As musician and critic Chris Cutler noted in an essay about Ra some years ago, the scope of his project was almost unfathomable.
Sadly, Sun Ra died in 1993, and his stalwart tenor saxophone player John Gilmore followed a couple years later. But, happily, the band has kept on, still a force to be reckoned with. As important as Ra's contribution was on the piano and other keys, he never really allowed himself to dominate the total sonic picture. While he led the group in many profound ways musically and spritually, it was clear many years earlier that Marshall Allen, John Gilmore and other long time members had important leadership roles as well. The earliest post-Ra incarnations featured the great Avant Garde Pianist Muhal Richard Abrams as a guest, a fitting tribute from a man who more than anyone else except Cecil Taylor has advanced the role of the keyboards almost as far in his own direction as Sun Ra over the same period of time. Perhaps more fitting is that the keyboard chair is now empty in the Sun Ra Arkestra.
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Member: Edward Kane
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