Sun Ra (May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993) – UFO (1979)
The Arkestra's funkiest-ever cut, this cosmic funk jam featured trumpeter Michael Ray of Kool & The Gang, co-written by Sun Ra from the On Jupiter LP.
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This date marks the Arrival Day of the presence known as Sun Ra, one of the most prolific musical giants of the twentieth century who recorded over 100 full-length albums and more than 1,000 songs during his lifetime.
Born Herman Poole Blount in the Magic City of Birmingham, Alabama, and nicknamed “Sonny,” he was a child prodigy on the piano, able to compose and sight read music by the time he was eleven years old. He began performing as a teenager, both as a solo pianist and with jazz and R&B groups.
At age 22, he had a vision during which he was taken to Saturn by cosmic beings. “I would speak [through music], and the world would listen,” he later explained. “That’s what they told me.”
He legally changed his name to Le Sony'r Ra on October 20, 1952.
For an overview of his life and career, see Robert Mugge’s 1980 documentary A Joyful Noise, which took the filmmaker three years to complete; Jez Nelson's 2014 BBC radio documentary Travelling the Spaceways: the Cult of Sun Ra; and Sean Kitching’s look at ten of his arguably finest albums in the 2020 article “The Strange World Of... Sun Ra” from The Quietus. One of the definitive books on Sun Ra is the excellent biography Space Is The Place: The Lives And Times Of Sun Ra (1998) by John Szwed.
The superb jam “Saturn” was featured Sun Ra and his Arkestra’s third album, Jazz In Silhouette (1959). It was released on El Saturn Records, the label founded in 1957 by Ra’s business manager Alton Abraham.
In 1979, the Arkestra self-released their On Jupiter LP on El Saturn. It contained three songs, all written or co-written by Ra, including the relatively laid back title track (recorded on October 16, 1979), the 17-minute long jam “Seductive Fantasy” that escalates to a free jazz crescendo, and the album’s masterpiece, the cosmic funk anthem “UFO.“
The album was also issued in two other variations. One was a white label version titled Seductive Fantasy, with the title hand written in red marker and the record’s labels hand written in pen. The other was titled UFO, and was the only variation of them all to contain a typed sheet of liner notes detailing the personnel and indicating the track had been recorded in August, 1979. “UFO” was co-written by Ra, Clarke (which could have been either Arkestra bassist Steve Clarke or drummer Sam Clarke) and bassist Ben Richardson.
The liner notes listed Sun Ra as playing piano, electric piano, organ, synthesizer, and voice; John Gilmore on tenor sax, percussion and voice; Marshall Allen on alto sax, flute, oboe, piccolo, and percussion; Danny Thompson on baritone sax, flute and percussion; Noel Scott on baritone and alto sax plus flute; Kendrick Williams on baritone and tenor sax; James Jackson on bassoon, flute, oboe, and ancient Egyptian infinity drum; Tony Bethel on trombone; Hayes Burnett on bass; Ben Richardson on bass guitar; Dale Williams on guitar; Eddie Thommus on timbales, percussion and voice; Sam Clarke on drums; June Tyson on voice; and Michael Ray on trumpet, fluegelhorn, and voice, who was a member of the Arkestra from 1978-92 and has played with Kool & The Gang since 1979.
Sun Ra and his Omniverse Jet Set Arkestra at The Detroit Jazz Center, New Year's Eve, December 31, 1979.
At a moment when demagogue, racist and liar-in-chief Trump and his supporters are scheming to return him to power by hook, crook and discrediting the truth, we need to heed this song’s profound reminder that “You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all of the time.”
Happy Arrival Day to the great Le Sony'r Ra.
Further info:
Space Is The Place: The Lives And Times Of Sun Ra by John Szwed, Da Capo Press, 1998.
"Sun Ra: jazz's interstellar voyager," by Jez Nelson, The Guardian, June 15, 2014
Travelling the Spaceways: the Cult of Sun Ra, radio documentary by Jez Nelson, BBC, 2014.
“The Strange World Of... Sun Ra,” by Sean Kitching, The Quietus, July 14, 2020
#jazz #funk #SunRa
I had the distinct pleasure to see Sun Ra in Austin at Liberty Lunch around 1990. It was a highlight of my life. Sun Ra himself didn’t appear until sometime towards the end of the first song, an almost endless free jazz piece that was immediately followed by one of the horn players crooning a Duke Ellington ballad. Sun Ra was an imposing figure, a big man in a long, light robe. At the end of the set the the audience applauded crazily, calling for more. One of the band members emerged to let the crowd know they were done for the night and that their next gig would be in Japan, should anyone present want to come along.
Just two nights earlier I’d had a bunch of mushrooms and weed, convinced after a couple of hours that my best friend had brought the video we were watching because it was his way of telling me that we were both alien beings. And that he’d been advised by our superiors to prepare me for returning to our home planet.
I started crying once I’d figured this out. My friend turned to me and asked if I understood why he’d brought the video. I told him yes. He asked me to tell him what I thought. I told him my insight about us being aliens; at the end of my story he looked at me and said, “Uh, yeah. That’s why.” Then he turned back towards the tv.
A few minutes later he turned back to me and asked, “Wait, are you serious? Do you think you and I are aliens about to return to our home planet?” I said I did. He rewound the videotape and said, “Okay, we need to watch this again. We’re not aliens.”
The video was the episode of “Miami Vice” with James Brown as a contact for aliens. Anyway, I bring this up because after the Sun Ra concert, I was relieved that I hadn’t done the mushrooms that evening instead. I’d have followed the band to Japan.