Happy Arrival Day, Sun Ra!

brianlux · May 2020

Musician, poet, composer, bandleader, philosopher, Sun Ra arrived on planet Earth on this day in 1914.

As Ra's "birthday" began to approach, it seemed to me that "arrival day" was a better description for when this amazing soul began his journey in this lifetime. That idea was affirmed when I came across this passage in John Szwed's excellent Sun Ra Biography, Space is the Place; The Lives and Times of Sun Ra: "We talk about people having "departed" from this world, but never say they have "arrived" here. The birthday should be the arrival day and what you call death should be the departure day."

Ra claimed on occasion that he came from Saturn on a mission of peace and described in consistent detail throughout his life a teleportation to Saturn:

"My whole body changed into something else. I could see through myself. And I went up... I wasn't in human form... I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn... they teleported me and I was down on [a] stage with them. They wanted to talk with me. They had one little antenna on each ear. A little antenna over each eye. They talked to me. They told me to stop [attending college] because there was going to be great trouble in schools... the world was going into complete chaos... I would speak [through music], and the world would listen. That's what they told me."

These were not the words of a crazed druggie. Sun Ra was a brilliant individual who eschewed and abstained from drugs and rarely drank alcohol.

Ra was often misunderstood and maligned but people who did not understand his music and his band. Many who first hear his music find it odd at best, chaotic and undisciplined at worst. But Sun Ra's music is anything but haphazard and undisciplined. All of his music was written and charted for each member of his orchestra (or what he referred to as the Arkestra) and rehearsal time with his various band was quite extensive. Sun Ra was a gifted musician from an early age, learning to play piano, sight read and compose music at the age of 10 or 11.

Here are some excellent videos of Sun Ra and the Arkestra at work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAVXGWEumUc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k341z3dsXy4

Happy Arrival Day, Sun Ra!

Image: https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2014/05/21/sun-ra-in-text1-cb4036fa5068a4f9afd4b56bf6c55bb176415eaf-s800-c85.jpg

brianlux · May 2020

Check out this performance in Japan.. Fantastic!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b03BCkTA-oI

pearljammr78 · May 2020

I love the concept of arrive and depart. Greatest thing about great music is it never departs. It’s eternal.

brianlux · May 2020

pearljammr78 said:

I love the concept of arrive and depart. Greatest thing about great music is it never departs. It’s eternal.

So true!

Sun Ra was very focused on immortality through the creative process, not so much for bolstering his own pride or ego, but for exploring the possibility of creativity carrying on. And although his own legacy is fairly small in terms of how widespread his popularity is, I do believe in decades and centuries to come, his work will be recognized among the great composers of all ages.

Here's another phenomenal piece of work by this great man:

Studio version: