This image of Sun Ra is a photocopy of a press-kit picture sent around 1990 to the newspaper where I worked in Springfield, Missouri. Why would a publicist send Sun Ra promotional materials to Springfield, Mo.? I asked the entertainment reporter if I could keep the photo. Of course he had no use for it. I made a bunch of copies of it in case I lost the original. Turns out, that was a good decision.
Sun Ra died in 1993. His music lives on, thanks to the dedication of saxophonist Marshall Allen, a longtime member of his band, who continues to lead the Sun Ra Arkestra.
Two decades before the discovery of the photo, I saw Sun Ra at the Auditorium Theater in Chicago, as part of a double bill with Alice Coltrane. Quite a memorable evening of spacey music. Sun Ra, who worked regularly in Chicago in the 40s and 50s, performed with his band and two tiny women dressed in one-piece, aluminum-colored, glittering body suits with scalp-clutching hoods, antennae thrusting diagonally from either side of their heads. These interplanetary pixies occasionally pranced around the stage while the band played a jaunty vamp and Sun Ra ran his palms up and down multiple keyboards, creating deafening crushes that vibrated through the building and within my head. It was liberating — a defining moment.
With Sun Ra, I often wondered whether he was serious or joking. From what I saw, I decided he must have been serious because he never cracked up, and neither did anyone in his band. I could be entirely wrong, though.
The evening ended on two dismaying notes. From my seat in the first balcony, I saw, from the corner of my eye, a man approach the railing and throw disc-shaped pieces of glass or metal toward the stage. I couldn’t tell if any of his projectiles reached the stage, or if they hit anyone in the audience. None of the musicians seemed to take notice, but a few patrons’ heads turned. The man threw three or four of these objects then ran away.
A couple of minutes later, Sun Ra interrupted the music and went into a rant, denouncing the audience and Chicago in general. He chanted:
For many years, I thought the attack from the balcony motivated Ra’s tirade, but now I see that the two events may not have been related, even though it looked that way from my perspective.
Sun Ra died in 1993. His music lives on, thanks to the dedication of saxophonist Marshall Allen, a longtime member of his band, who continues to lead the Sun Ra Arkestra.
Two decades before the discovery of the photo, I saw Sun Ra at the Auditorium Theater in Chicago, as part of a double bill with Alice Coltrane. Quite a memorable evening of spacey music. Sun Ra, who worked regularly in Chicago in the 40s and 50s, performed with his band and two tiny women dressed in one-piece, aluminum-colored, glittering body suits with scalp-clutching hoods, antennae thrusting diagonally from either side of their heads. These interplanetary pixies occasionally pranced around the stage while the band played a jaunty vamp and Sun Ra ran his palms up and down multiple keyboards, creating deafening crushes that vibrated through the building and within my head. It was liberating — a defining moment.
With Sun Ra, I often wondered whether he was serious or joking. From what I saw, I decided he must have been serious because he never cracked up, and neither did anyone in his band. I could be entirely wrong, though.
The evening ended on two dismaying notes. From my seat in the first balcony, I saw, from the corner of my eye, a man approach the railing and throw disc-shaped pieces of glass or metal toward the stage. I couldn’t tell if any of his projectiles reached the stage, or if they hit anyone in the audience. None of the musicians seemed to take notice, but a few patrons’ heads turned. The man threw three or four of these objects then ran away.
A couple of minutes later, Sun Ra interrupted the music and went into a rant, denouncing the audience and Chicago in general. He chanted:
We have transcended Chicago!
We have transcended Chicago!
We have transcended Chicago!
We have transcended Chicago!
For many years, I thought the attack from the balcony motivated Ra’s tirade, but now I see that the two events may not have been related, even though it looked that way from my perspective.
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