Some incredible interstellar material has been popping up, with reviews, seminars, photos, artwork and especially MP3s (with scarce sound material) by the maestro of the Omniverse, Sun Ra. The following are some choice sites in the Sun Ra digital realm:
MAGIC OF JUJU A cool blog site on out-jazz, world music, mystic, trance and ecstatic sounds… well worth bookmarking. Scroll to the bottom and check out several rare Saturn LPs ready for free download. Paradise. Don’t forget your passport. Also check out THE SATURN WEB “home of Sun Ra and his protean Arkestra,” with lots of links and things Saturnian.
The recent book PATHWAYS TO THE UNKNOWN: SUN RA, EL-SATURN & CHICAGO’S AFRO-FUTURIST UNDERGROUND contains ephemera, drawings and artwork from Sun Ra’s private notebooks. Also the infamous WFMU “Beware of the Blog” website has some MP3s of that rare Batman children’s LP of 1966 (traying to cash in on the Adam West TV series) featuring our true heroes: SUN RA & THE BLUES PROJECT DOES BATMAN & ROBIN
You Tube has many performance clips of Sun Ra worth viewing. This clip is of artist Kerry James Marshall lecturing on the art and music of Sun Ra taken from the recent Hyde Park, Chicago seminars on the life Sun Ra:
Sun Ra was born on the planet Saturn, ages ago, and spent some time on Earth using the power of music to demonstrate the virtues of discipline and harmony to members of this planet. Or, if you prefer a more straightforward approach to your musical biographies, Sun Ra was born Herman P. Blount in Birmingham, Alabama in 1914. Whichever way you choose to look at matters, some things are not in doubt : Sun Ra arrived on this planet via Birmingham on May 22, 1914, left this planet on May 30, 1993, and spent the majority of his time here working with groups of musicians to leave behind an amazingly large, diverse, diffuse, and beautiful catalogue of recordings and live performances the likes of which has never been seen before. — Scott McFarland from Furious.com
1981, Chicago performance with Mr. Mystery:
More links lifted from the gang at the Sun Ra listserve:
http://www.thestranger.com/lineout/2007/02/astral_traveling
> http://brownswood.5.forumer.com/index.php?showtopic=8988
i d/l-ed that mp3 file
http://www.otherworldsrecords.net//Downloads//SunRaMixPt1.mp3 and gave it a listen last night… not too bad! sort of a ‘love – the beatles’ thing happening with sun ra? an interesting selection of songs! personally, i like the first half, which seems to flow nicely,where as the second half seems to move from form to form, almost like they got bored or couldn’t figure out quite which song to use or
something? i know that doing an hour of mix is not easy! but that is just me.
btw, that is also at http://www.otherworldsrecords.net//downloads.html
with cover art and a link to d/l or stream.
i took a look at the setlist they provided on their website, and came up with a track timing. i think i have most of them correct. the times are plus or minus a second or two, as there is quite a bit of cross fading…
1. Sun Thoughts (excerpt) 0:19
2. Moon Dance 1:41
3. Midnight In Rome 1:42
4. Made A Mistake 3:46
5. Media Dream (excerpt) 0:23
6. Sleeping Beauty 2:25
7. Dreaming 3:15
8. On Jupiter 3:47
9. Interstellar Low Ways 1:28
10. Astro Black 0:23
11. Lanquidity 8:32
12. Somebody Else’s World 3:05
13. Tiny Pyramids 3:26
14. Neptune 2:03
15. Nuclear War 2:50
16. When There Is No Sun 2:18
17. The Design – Cosmos II (excerpt) 0:24
18. Celestial Road 1:44
19. I’ll Wait For You 2:50
20. Say 1:47
21. John Cage meets Sun Ra (excerpt) 0:22
22. UFO 3:05
23. The Perfect Man 2:23
24. Pink Elephants 3:17
25. Destination Unknown 2:50
[ 60:01 ]
> some great photos in the last link too. As well as this link:
> http://www.andyw.com/sunra/elsaturn.htm