Reflections on Sun Ra

By Adam Abraham

[AUTHOR'S NOTE DEC, 2002: This article was originally written in 1997 and published in ContinuuM magazine. It spoke of my father, Alton Abraham, who was still amongst us at the time. He passed over on June 6, 1999. In addition to my own endeavors as, among other things, an author (I Am My Body, NOT!, I Am Spirit!) and publisher, I am carrying on the work that my dad began. In 2001, new Sun Ra-related material will issue forth from this source. I will also be writing new material about this "new" dimension of my life.--AA]

Sun Ra is a grand master of music whose "time" seems yet to be "behind" him eight years after his earthly passing. As my fledgling magazine, Continuum speculated on the nature of time and space, myth and race, God and Soul, and on life within the Cosmos, it was hard to overlook the contributions of Sun Ra. It still is. He was a pianist, bandleader, philosopher and teacher who—beginning in the late 1940's, into the 1990's—made such topics his trademark.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Sun Ra is (was) the leader of Sun Ra and his Arkestra (that is how they spelled "orchestra"). Perhaps they were making a play on the word "ark" which, given their point of view, would have been a reasonable way to describe the planet Earth itself. Over its lifetime the group used several adjectives as identifiers, including Sun Ra and his Intergalactic Solar, Myth Science, and Astro-Ihnfinity Arkestra. The group was "far out" long before it was fashionable to be so.

Not only did in their choice of outfits stand out (they could make George Clinton look conservative), so did their message. This was the most cosmos aware band of musicians to come down the line. To my knowledge, no music group has presented such a consistent message, before or since, about the possibilities of otherworldly existence. In fact, Sun Ra even taught a class on this and other topics, at Berkeley in the early 1970's.

"The Dead Past"

The civilizations of the past have been used as the foundation of civilizations of today. Because of this, the world keeps looking toward the past for guidance. Too many people are following the past. In this new space age, this is dangerous. The past is DEAD and those who are following the past are doomed to die and be like the past. It is no accident that those who die are said to have passed since those who are PASSED are PAST. –Sun Ra

I have a personal, if somewhat oblique connection to Sun Ra and his music. It was through my father, Alton Abraham, the mastermind behind the Sun Ra persona. He was also president of El Saturn Records, in Chicago, IL, a very small record label and producer. Dad was very much the force behind the message of space consciousness that Sun Ra delivered both musically and in writings, to audiences around the world. He passed from this world on June 6, 1999.

Formed in Chicago in the early 1950s, the Arkestra’s musical style began as bebop and swing, and over a forty-year period, evolved into free jazz. Though they did indeed play contemporary jazz of the day, they also played what could be characterized as a brand of unstructured or freeform instrumentalism.

A master keyboardist himself, Sun Ra "pushed the envelop" both musically and experientially, in every way. Always open to new and ever more dazzling tools, he was a technological pioneer; one of the first adopters of the electric piano and synthesizer. The band included standard instruments as alto, tenor, and soprano saxophones, trombones, clarinets, flutes, and drums. Then there were unusual items, such as a baritone sax, bongos and other percussion pieces, gongs, bells, and chant vocalizations. Their live shows included dancers and film projected onto the stage, with their bodies serving as individual "screens" in space.

Though the group also played jazz standards such as Green Dolphin Street, and ‘Round Midnight, their main interest and focus can be easily discerned in following titles: Distant Stars, Dimensions in Time, Enlightenment, Saturn, Atlantis, Somewhere in Space, Interplanetary Music, and Rocket Number Nine Take Off for the Planet Venus.

May 13, 2001 8:08 PM