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About Sun Ra Arkestra
Instrument: Band / ensemble / orchestra
Sun Ra Arkestra At The San Francisco Jazz Festival
by Harry S. Pariser
Sun Ra Arkestra SFJAZZ San Francisco Jazz Festival San Francisco, California July 18 and 21, 2019 Jazz has a storied history of hosting any number of iconoclasts. But few can compete with the late Sun Ra for sheer brazen originality and prodigious recorded output. The man born as Herman Blount (1914-1993) was an Arkansas-born pianist, synthesizer player, composer and bandleader. Blount also maintained that he was from Saturn and had a following of acolyte ...
Continue ReadingSun Ra Arkestra Under the Direction of Marshall Allen: Babylon
by Mark Corroto
If the recording Babylon is any indication, the second century of Sun Ra's music will be as entertaining as the first hundred years. Recorded live at Istanbul's Babylon Club in 2014, the full effect of Sun Ra's Arkestra is captured in all its glory with this CD and bonus DVD recording. The Arkestra has been under the direction of nonagenarian Marshall Allen since Sun Ra's death in 1993. Allen, an alto saxophonist and sideman to Ra since the ...
Continue ReadingSave the Date - Maggio 2014
by Luca Canini
Maggio, tempo di festival. L'estate si avvicina e nel Bel Paese è tutto uno sbocciare di rassegne. I mega eventi da piazza piena e sudata, i soliti programmi fotocopiati, le inutili poltiglie che tanto piacciono agli assessori e le proposte che invece piacciono a noi di All About Jazz. Non tantissime, a dire il vero. Siamo di palato fino, lo sappiamo. Ma niente sconti: per “Save the Date" soltanto il meglio del meglio del meglio. 9-17 Maggio-Vicenza. ...
Continue ReadingSun Ra Arkestra at the Victoria Theater
by Harry S. Pariser
Sun Ra Arkestra Victoria TheaterSan Francisco, CAAugust 3, 2013A line of jazz fans snaked around the block from the front of the iconic Victoria Theater, centrally located on 16th Street in the heart of San Francisco's Mission District, halfway down Capp Street. The crowd spanned age, gender and race; the buzz remained palpable despite the fact that the parents the majority of ticket holders would not have even met all those decades ago when the ...
Continue ReadingSun Ra Arkestra: Live At The Paradox
by Dan Bilawsky
Few groups have travelled as far--cosmically and musically--as the Sun Ra Arkestra. While Ra's Saturnian schtick brought him great attention and notoriety, his music goes well beyond that one area. The roots of swing, bop-leaning sounds, extra-terrestrial experimentalism and free jazz of the most ferocious kind are all part of Ra's repertoire. Ra departed planet Earth in 1993, but the Arkestra soldiered on under the direction of longtime saxophonist John Gilmore. When Gilmore passed away in 1995, ...
Continue ReadingSun Ra: Sun Ra Featuring Pharoah Sanders & Black Harold
by Raul d'Gama Rose
Sun Ra featuring Pharoah Sanders & Black Harold is a near mythical document of the astral traveling Arkestra. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, this recording came a year before the now historic and certainly definitive Arkestra records, Heliocentric Worlds Vol. 1 & 2 (ESP, 1965) and Magic City (Saturn, 1965) that came hot on the heels of the ESP release. Secondly, the recording feature 45 minutes of unreleased material pertaining to a breathtaking concert presented by the Jazz ...
Continue ReadingSun Ra Arkestra + DKT/MC5 in London
by Rob Witts
Royal Festival Hall London UK25 February 2005The Sun Ra Arkestra take the stage in glittering costumes and outlandish headgear, looking like the house band at a particularly wild Star Trek convention and sounding like nothing else on earth - or indeed on Saturn. Since Sun Ra's death in 1993, the patented mixture of swampy big-band and riotous free jazz has been presided over by saxophonist Marhall Allen, who launches tonight's proceedings with a squealing solo. Taken as a ...
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