It’s very hard to write about such a vast, deep musician because where exactly do you begin? Sun Ra insisted he was from the planet Saturn, and all musical evidence suggests this is true. I’ll start with my own personal introduction to his music, since for years I was intimidated by it.
I had heard Sun Ra was some of the wildest music out there and that his catalogue was immense. What to listen to first? For years I didn’t know, so I didn’t listen to any of it. I stumbled on a used record in 2022, a reissue of Jazz in Silhouette for $15, and knew I had to buy it because few records are that cheap, let alone a Sun Ra. It was a surprisingly “in” album, but gorgeous, melodies and big band swing galore. I didn’t go beyond it.
On June 27, 2023, while minding my own business one day I came upon a tweet saying the Sun Ra Arkestra was doing a free workshop in Regent Park. Holy! To be honest, I had been feeling quite down and depressed and leaving the apartment was hard, but I live on Dundas and the show was on Dundas, just a streetcar ride away. If such a killer free show was happening down the street and I didn’t bother to see it, what exactly was I doing?
I didn’t know what a “free workshop” constituted exactly, but it turned out that the band basically played a free concert. There were some kids and adult musicians, a community band, on stage too, albeit not really plugged in or mic’d up. The Arkestra’s music was unbelievable. I went with a buddy and we still laugh about what I told him before the show started. I did say I was no expert on the band, but I knew that they were considered absolutely top tier musicians, comparable to Coltrane, Ellington, all the legendary household names, and the group formed in 1958. “Which one is Sun Ra?” Cian asked. “Hmmm, that one?” I said, pointing to the oldest-looking gentleman. Well, Sun Ra died in 1993. That’s how uninitiated I was then. (Cian plays bass for a band called Swiims, and they’re really cool too, though quite different than the Arkestra!)
The “workshop” consisted of the band, only half of them wearing their elaborate stage costumes, playing some of their well-known tunes (new to me then), talking to the audience between songs about the history of the band and jazz itself, very interwoven things, and encouraging the audience to listen and play music. My mouth hung open. It still hasn’t closed. I couldn’t believe this was happening in my city and to me. I really still can’t! The band was still playing when they walked off the stage over an hour later, mid-song.
Then, in the atrium we all feasted together. Band members and audience were welcome to eat samosas and some other delicious food together, all free. What world was I living in? Toronto is outrageously expensive and so are concerts, so I was truly astonished by the whole thing.
I spoke briefly to Dave Hotep, the band’s guitarist, who said he heard there was a municipal election and that the right person won. Suddenly I was living in a world where Olivia Chow was mayor, the Sun Ra Arkestra plays free shows in my city, and you could just casually eat free samosas and talk to jazz legends.
It did a lot for my mood. It’s hard to be depressed when your mind is blown and your soul is soaring.
The next night I lined up early for their concert at Great Hall because I didn’t have a ticket but absolutely had to see them. This was no ticketmaster/live nation scam, with prices in the hundreds or thousands of dollars. This was $50, cash. The lack of any online reselling scams was so refreshing, in keeping with everything the band does. No gimmicks, no bullshit. Just music.
Outside in the line, the legendary Arkestra member Knoel Scott asked me if I knew where to get a bottle and we (I made some friends in line; Ra is higher conscious music and the whole audience felt palpably friendly, happy and cool) told him where the nearest LCBO was. I was dead sober, excited as hell, and the two-plus hours of music that night changed my life. I was astonished and buzzing and still can’t believe how good it was. I really can’t. I’ve seen Phil and Bobby, Phish, Santana, Dr John…countless killer musicians. I doubt I’ll ever hear or see better music than I heard that night unless I see the Arkestra again.
After the show I went on Twitter to find other fans and pictures from the night and ended up going back and forth a bit with Ra trombonist Dave Davis for a while. My buddy Grasshopper was at the show and ended up hanging with one of the band members until 5am at his place, looking at Sun Ra records.
It’s been months, but I pretty much just listen to Sun Ra now. I just counted and have 13 of their albums on vinyl. The band has probably 250, I don’t think anybody’s sure exactly. Pressings from the 70s or older on Sun Ra’s own Saturn label are among the rarest albums you can find, costing over $1,000 Cdn usually. Some have original one-of-a-kind art work band members devised to help sell the albums because it was their own record label and I don’t think they made official covers, never mind having a corporate behemoth helping with marketing. They painted the covers themselves, sometimes. I’ve seen an original copy of Horizons and Lanquidity, the latter being probably my favourite.
I have two box sets of music from 1978 and 1984 reissued, respectively, in 2011 and 2014, splurges I absolutely love. One I bought from Grasshopper Records, with my now father-in-law the weekend before my wedding. Grasshopper recommended his friend to DJ my wedding, and they gave me a friend discount, and I was more than happy to use some of that to buy a serious Ra record. When I heard they were playing a free workshop, I told Grasshopper, but sadly he got caught in traffic and showed up just for samosas.
I have a few original Ra records that were surprisingly inexpensive, I guess because they’re the least rare albums, not from the Saturn label. $30-40 range. Nothing crazy. Some of the band’s music is too out there for me still, but I consider this something I probably need to work through or advance towards. If anything, the shortcoming is mine, not theirs! The Arkestra can swing with the absolute best of them. They play every type of jazz and blues, fit any mood. It feels like it’s in their bones. The history of the band aligns with the ear test–you hear them and know they go way, way back. They’re not playing jazz, they are jazz. Sun Ra wrote charts for Fletcher Henderson, a big band jazz legend who died in 1952. Marshall Allen, the band’s current musical director, is 100 years old. He wasn’t there in Toronto, but still plays on special occasions in Brooklyn, his home, including I understand his 100th birthday party.
When generations of elite musicians devote their entire lives to music, not just their careers but their spiritual lives too, the result is the Sun Ra Arkestra. My understanding is all or most of the band lived in the same house, a row house in their Philadelphia period, and would play daily for upwards of 10-15 hours. Imagine…you play a 3-hour concert, but that’s only 20% of the music you played that day. Now imagine that dedication and hours logged over decades. That’s how good the Sun Ra Arkestra is. To me they embody the polarities between ultimate freedom and ultimate discipline. They know all the jazz there is on Earth, and lots of Saturn music, too.
Next time I write about them, I’ll focus on an album because it’s crazy to write this much and barely talk about their actual music, one of my favourite things in life, currently.
One final note. In 1999, I saw a show by a group called the Cosmic Krewe at the Comfort Zone because I heard their band leader, a trumpet player named Michael Ray, jam live with Phish on a tape from ’94. I knew then that Ray also played with Kool and the Gang, but had no idea until 2023 he was also a member of the Sun Ra Arkestra since 1979. I listened to the bootleg Comfort Zone Krewe show I went to a lot. There were melodies I’ve been humming for over 20 years, not knowing how to find these songs. How do you google a melody, exactly? So I was shocked yet somehow unsurprised when it turned out these Cosmic Krewe songs were in fact Sun Ra Arkestra songs. Enlightenment I had heard on Jazz in Silhouette, but Live in Nickelsdorf has another tune I knew since 1999. It blew my mind.
I’m only half-joking when I say that despite playing guitar for 30 years, I really didn’t know anything about music until June 27, 2023, the first time I heard and saw the Sun Ra Arkestra. (Half-joking because that’s also what I said in 2021, when I got deep into Parliament Funkadelic, but that’s another post.) I’m still buzzing from those concerts and I doubt I’ll ever stop. Music really is a life-long journey, and I’ve been very grateful, humbled, and appreciative to find musicians so out there and this deep.