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Sun Ra
Arkestra
directed by
Marshall Allen
Official
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Eclectic, outrageous, sometimes
mystifying but always imbued with a
powerful jazz consciousness, the
music of Sun Ra has withstood its
skeptics and detractors for nearly
three generations. And well it
should, since Sun Ra has been both
apart of and ahead of the jazz
tradition during that time. Like
Duke Ellington and swing-era pioneer
Fletcher Henderson, Sun Ra learned
early on to write music in an
arranged form that showcased the
specific talents of his individual
Arkestra members, and he has
retained the services of some of
these musicians to this day: John
Gilmore, Marshall Allen, and Julian
Priester for example since they
first joined in the 1950's. On the
other hand, Sun Ra was the first
jazz musician to perform on
electronic keyboards (56), the first
to pursue full-scale collective
improvisation in a big band setting,
and his preoccupation with space
travel as a compositional subject
predated bands like Weather Report
by about 15 years.All this from
someone who refuses to even cite the
earth as his home planet and prefers
to have arrived from Saturn. As Sun
Ra once explained it, "I never
wanted to be a part of planet Earth,
but I am compelled to be here, so
anything I do for this planet is
because the Master-Creator of the
Universe is making me do it. I am of
another dimension. I am on this
planet because people need me".
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