Also present at the tribute to Sun Ra: the saxophonist Marshall Allen, now 100 years old (here at the Moers Festival, 2003)
Photo: dpa
That the music of the Sun Ra Arkestra would still be so enduringly present more than 30 years after the death of Herman “Sonny” Poole Blount, who became known as Sun Ra, would have been unimaginable at the time. The very free jazz that the Arkestra produced during its founder’s lifetime is one thing. Blount has also gone down in music history as one of the founders and key figures of Afrofuturism. Afrofutrism transferred stories about discrimination, racist violence and the history of slavery and the general presence of people of color in the USA into a science fiction setting. In the music of the Sun Ra Arkestra, all of this was put into a mythological system in which the band leader is said to have come to earth not from our world, but from the planet Saturn.
Accordingly, the musical procedure was independent, especially in the 60s, when Sun Ra Arkestra’s albums were heard by beatniks and psychedelic fans. “When Sun Comes Out” and “Other Planes of There” were very difficult to hear then as now. Later it became more accessible. For example, the song-heavy “Space is the Place” is suitable for initial contact.
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In free jazz, a lot is decided by the question of accessibility: Are familiar structures still noticeable in the pieces or does everything tend to dissolve? Are there such things as songs or do whining, scratching and noise dominate? As far as that goes, Sun Ra’s music is already traveling pretty far out in space, to keep the picture in perspective. And is brought back to earth, so to speak, by the Kronos Quartet.
The string ensemble has a whole range for the tribute album “Outer Spaceways Incorporated – Kronos Quartet & Friends Meet Sun Ra”, the fourth in a series of Sun Ra tributes released on the NGO Red Hot Org label Collaborators mobilized. Sun-Ra pieces and his own compositions were recorded, which refer to the Afrofuturism of the 60s and 70s. The strings have a structure-forming effect, and the first half of the album in particular is very open to all interested ears. “Maji,” recorded with Jlin, combines polyrhythmic percussion sample layers and string hits. “Daddy’s Gonna Tell You No Lie” is an almost melancholic piece of lounge jazz. Laurie Anderson has recorded a text about Sun Ra called “Images Suite (Images / Horoscope / Ancient Aiethopia / Interstellar Low Ways)”, to which the violins and the now 100-year-old Arkestra veteran Marshall Allen play a suite.
In the second half of the album the jazz focus gradually disappears. Armand Hammer raps over stumbling lo-fi trash beats by the Chicago footwork artist RP Boo (“Blood Running High”), 700 Bliss and DJ Haram, together with the Kronos Quartet, produce a sound surface that constantly diffuses away via the Moor Mother recites a meditation on the teachings of Sun Ra. And “Love Is Outer Space” translates the self-conscious chaos of the Arkestra concerts into an avant-rock cut-up aesthetic. To perform six of the 13 pieces.
“Outer Spaceways Incorporated” isn’t as grueling as Sun Ra’s music has honestly always been. But the album is animated by a similar musical spirit. Demanding, with fun with unlikely sounds and cheerfully dissolving structures.
V. A.: »Outer Spaceways Incorporated – Kronos Quartet & Friends Meet Sun Ra« (Red Hot Org)