Sun Ra was born Herman P. Blount on May 22, 1914, in Birmingham, Alabama, but this is something he categorically denied, even in his later years. To that end, on May 30th 1993 he did not die but returned to his home planet Saturn. A Jazz pianist, band-leader and philosopher Sun Ra was a law unto himself, and has subsequently become one of the most iconic performers of the 20th century. iCrates was lucky enough to talk with long time disciple and leader of the current Sun Ra Arkestra Marshall Allen about the music and his time under Ra’s direction. But first, Sun Ra…
Adapting a childhood nickname Sonny, he built an elaborate mythology around himself as a messenger from outer space. He carried many with him along his voyage and a devoted core of fifteen disciples by his side, most still playing as The Sun Ra Arkestra.
Ra claimed to have been abducted by aliens in his teenage years, who revealed to him the secrets of the universe. He accordingly rejected worldly aspirations, dropped out of college and dedicated the rest of his life to what he had learned that night. He developed an ‘Astro-Black Mythology’ and spoke of the ‘Omniverse’ of countless realities that he alone was tuned into.
He dressed himself as the crux of a holy trinity of the African American past, present and future, in faux-Egyptian outfits and glistening capes. It is the self-styled absurdity of his appearance that most remember him by, though they do a disservice to his sheer and brilliant music.
Sun Ra – “Face the Music/ Space is the Place”
Some considered him a con artist or suffering from Schizophrenic delusions or both. Was this just an elaborate marketing ploy? Was he not just teleporting all the way to the bank? George Clinton and other artists have come under similar criticism from critics who claim the performance of the personality is not fulfilled on stage. There is a difference: Sun Ra’s futurism goes beyond antics to sincere self-belief, and – crucially – was not associated with LSD use. ‘Space’ as a metaphor, a motif or just a destination predates all that for Ra, whose first band the Space Trio formed in 1950. Drug abuse by the musicians was met with zero tolerance by the disciplined bandleader. He was here to guide us from our false prophets, not condone them. Beyond that, he never diluted his music to a populist form and preferred to hand out free records with unique hand drawn designs than mass market his music. This underground mystique, backed by his fanatical devotion to his cause, built Sun Ra into a cult icon.
But really, music was the thing. It was a code to transcendental ascendance that could be unlocked through tireless performance and experimentation. He did not sleep in a bed but preferred cat naps at his piano and performed for ten to twelve hours a day with his highly disciplined Arkestra living and working alongside him. To Ra, music was the language of creation. Listening, practicing and performing were all equally important to the sacred text of music, and devotion to each would change the world.
He strived for innovation at all times; rapid staccato saxophony was backed by extensive percussion instrumentation, often new inventions derived from tribal African drums. He was also the first to use electronic keyboards and synthesizers in jazz (including the Rock-Si-Chord) founding the techniques that Weather Report would popularise years later. Some of the Arkestra’s work slots neatly into the hard bop groove and would mingle comfortably with Herbie Hancock, but then it often strays into an dissonant sound and shuffles into the Avant-Garde corner of the room. Ra knew that there could be no beauty without ugliness in art, for that is what he witnessed every day in a discordant world of bum notes. Ra’s legacy goes beyond his mythology and helped move Jazz from an ethno-music to an art music, building a body of work of over 100 LPs that would inspire free jazz on both sides of the Atlantic.
Space is the Place excerpt (1974)
“If you find Earth boring, just the same old same thing, come on sign up with Outer Spaceways Incorporated…” sings June Tyson in Space is the Place (1874), the film that acts as Sun Ra’s manifesto. Part documentary, part conspiracy theory, the plot is vague at best. The Sun Ra Arkestra act as messengers to wake planet Earth up from her slumber, and transport worthy Earthlings to a better planet. Ra plays a high risks game of cards with the devil, personified as a Cadillac driving pimp, for the future of the black race and planet Earth. The pimp prays on those at risk to temptation; a drunkard, ghetto youth, a nurse who he ropes into prostitution. Sun Ra meanwhile, must strive to stage an elaborate concert so that Earthlings may heed his call and be accepted into the Intergalactic Employment Agency. It may seem absurd, but there are very real concerns expressed in Sun Ra’s mythology that ring true to the African American entertainment tradition as well as contemporary civil rights movement.
Theorists would retrospectively title Sun Ra’s brand of performance and artistry Afrofuturism, and Space is the Place as a maxim of its principles. The term gave structure and meaning to a body of experimental artists from the 1960s onwards, and put Ra’s antics and beliefs into a context of politicised creativity.
Jazz has always flirted with controversy in the identities of its heroes and villains, with costumes key to the identity of the performers. The Cotton Club had its dancers dressed in erotic ‘primitive’ reed dresses performing ‘Jungle Music’ to titillate its white audience. Later, striving for dignity and respectability, suited and booted black musicians ran the risk of being labelled Uncle Tom. But, through the adoption of the ancient African and the brilliant future Sun Ra paints himself as not as savage stereotype or smiling dandy, but a super-human.
And why not? In a nation that denied humanity to their ancestors, it was necessary for African Americans to write their own histories to exist. Black entertainers in particular had to struggle with the hypocrisy of fame and creative recognition on the stage, but disenfranchisement and racism off it.
To this end, Sun Ra throws off the narratives of Christian religion or African primitivism which he saw as continuing the subjugation of black America.
Afrofuturism imagines the impossible, with African Americans seen as alien outsiders, who, although powerless in the present, are empowered in the future. Alienated from dominant society, inheritor of a traumatic heritage of dehumanisation and slavery, what African American couldn’t say, “I am the presence of the living myth”, “I am not from this world, I am from an Alter-reality?” As for forming a colony on Saturn? Perhaps the exaggeration of relocation and the back-to-Africa movement.
Sun Ra Arkestra – “Shadow World”
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The Arkestra continues despite the black hole left by Ra at the centre of the band. Marshall Allen coheres the Arkestra forward, and hopefully upward, with a sweeping gesture that is much less rigorous than his mentor. Having given his life to “Ra Jail”, as he liked to call it, Allen graduated from reeds to band leader, something he hasn’t always been comfortable with, although he seems to have relaxed into a leisurely role as director. In his late years, he still musters the band brilliantly, even though the two trumpets sometimes make up for a breath or two. For nearly twenty years Allen has been determined not to lead a ghost band and has cut a few albums of his own material with the band and also makes rearrangements to Sun Ra’s composition.
‘The Sun Ra Arkestra Under the Direction of Marshall Allen’ played a sellout three day residency at Café Oto in Dalston, North London at the beginning of December. The trumpet player told me that Marshall never drinks before a gig and normally likes to stick to standards, shying away from the more rigorous and unwieldy numbers. On their first night in London he had a little of the whiskey going round. They played “free” all night. I caught up with him on the second night…
You came of age during the bop era of small groups. What was it about the big bands that you found so attractive?
Really, I was born in the age of the big bands, and I always listened to them growing up. So I had all these big bands and I always wanted to be in a band, you know.
People like Fletcher Henderson…?
Yeah, and Count Basie, there’s a lot of bands that I knew and admired.
Would you say the Sun Ra Arkestra can be credited with reinventing the big band?
It was still around when we was starting, in the fifties. Duke Ellington was still around. But, for Sun Ra’s music, he got his own band. He played it all, he played bop, he played the big band, he could play anything, but he needed the big band for his music.
Because he had such a strong idea of what he wanted to create?
Right.
Was there always a strong community from the beginning?
Yeah yeah, oh yeah, because, the way he’s playing his music and the music itself, it was a little different.
When did the cosmic philosophy come into play?
Well that was already there, but he had to train the musicians. Because they were playing everything – they were good musicians too – they could play anything. The style took a long time to build the band. ‘Cause he was talking about the moon and the sun, and we weren’t thinking about those things then, nobody was.
Do you think that Sun Ra’s infamous discipline or his showmanship which was his biggest legacy?
Well we had the band and we had the costume, dancers and strobe lights and everything, and what he was doing was different, because everybody was wearing costumes those days, just ours were a little different. It wasn’t a proper thing to be behaving that way; the bands had the bow ties and the tuxedos and all that, but we had fancy costumes all the colours and sparklers and the lights.
What does the costume mean to you these days?
That was all part of the show band, which we were; proper lights, proper costume, colourful, it was a show. It was a whole combination of things, the visuals and everything together with the music to create something new.
I see you’ve got yours here.
Yeah, here it is [Marshall Allen pats his sequinned cap balanced on crate of beer] safe and sound.
You’re still touring a lot, how does that fit in with the Arkestra’s lifestyle and is it still important to connect to audiences all over the world?
We don’t have permanent station, like one place we always play, we might play Chicago, then Los Angeles and whatever. We like to tour.
Sun Ra…without him, is it more of a “show,” now without his influence, without the meaning his philosophy gave the music?
Well no, they been having show bands for years and years and years. But this was a little different. For the show bands was if you wanted to play your horn, you play your horn. You sit there [mimes playing saxophone with a straight face] but not for Sun Ra, for him you had to sing, you had to dance, you clown around and everything else. We started out with singers and dancers, but as the band went on, the musicians began to sing and dance too.
And then there was the practice. If you weren’t at rehearsals then there wasn’t any role for you, or if you turn up late, sorry that’s it you can’t play today. Maybe he can find some way for you to play the next day or maybe the next, but not today.
And you had to practice every day?
Seven days a week. Christmas too.
As for that kind of showmanship and the costumes you were just talking about, some people may call it Afrofuturism…
Well they can call it what they want. We play the music, look and see and hear, there’s going to be something for everyone. We always play creative and with spirit. Got to listen to each other, create something. If you’re not paying attention, you learn that not everything is written down.
So most of what we see is from tonight, it’s not from the studio?
Well you got to create on the spot, but we also have the music too. We have the standards and they are played the way they are meant to be played, because we try to honour those that were before us. It’s great music, so it’s played the way it’s meant to be played, but for Sun Ra music, we wouldn’t get the same arrangement each day. Everybody got their code, it’s so if you come in to rehearsal he tailor makes it to the personality and your ability. That’s what he does, he personalised the music, if you weren’t at rehearsal the parts have to change to fit you in.
Illustration by Dina Khouri.
