Rocket Number Nine?

I know, I know.  But it's better you learn this now than to hear about it on the street later...

Dr. Thomas Stanley Interviewed - The Execution of Sun Ra

Early this summer, Dr. Thomas Stanley mounted a Kickstarter to fund his current book project: The Execution of Sun Ra - "A personal meditation and scholarly commentary on the late jazz icon's enduring contributions to the beleaguered humans of planet Earth." 

Dr. Stanley's most recent update at Kickstarter included a link to the interview below.  His update also included the exciting news that the book will include pictures by Lee Santa and perhaps by one-time official Arkestra photographer, Leon Collins.

Guest scholar Thomas Stanley assistant professor of Sound Art and Consciousness in the School of Art at George Mason University discusses his new project, The Execution of Sun Ra.

Biography (Kickstarter)

Thomas Stanley is an assistant professor of sound art and consciousness in the School of Art at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. He conducted his doctoral research on Butch Morris and his art of Conduction. He is co-author of George Clinton and P-Funk: An Oral History and has written and lectured extensively on emerging musical cultures. As an artist, performer, and curator, Stanley has been an integral part of a burgeoning experimental music scene along the Baltimore-Washington corridor. His work attempts to exploit the capacity of sound and music for anchoring, framing, and energizing our subjective experience of macrotemporal texture (history). Currently, within the trio Mind Over Matter Music Over Mind, he constructs and deploys sampled and electronically generated music.

Thomas Stanley is a founding member of Transparent Productions, a not-for-profit volunteer collective that has produced over 200 improvised jazz and experimental music concerts throughout the DC metro area since 1997. He has contributed to Point of Departure and Signal to Noise magazines and is included in the books Live Movies, Erotique Noire, and Beyond the Frontier: African-American Poetry for the Twenty-First Century. Stanley throws it up at musicovermind.org. He is also featured as a source in Stranger, a documentary film about seminal P-Funk and Talking Heads keyboardist Bernie Worrell.

In Space: Trudy Morse

from the Saturn List

Dear Friends of Trudy,

It is with much sadness that I write to tell you that my mother passed this morning after a short illness.  I'm sorry about the impersonal way to inform you,  but some of you I only know from emails.  As you know, my mother was a force of nature; she embraced life and lived for every moment.  She was never shy, always willing to try new things and really the most optimistic and positive person I have ever known.  Her net of influence, as you well know, was huge.  Almost everywhere I go - in the States and the rest of the world, I run into people who know her.  

Even in her last days with her mind fading from dementia, she was a bright light.  At Arden Courts, she was known as the activity director and and was happy and content.

(edit)

May her memory be as a blessing,

with much love and sadness,

Sarah .

--
Sarah Morse

About Trudy, I just want to say that the Waitawhile compilation and publication of Sun Ra's poetry  would never have happened without her.



I met Trudy at a long-gone little bar in Washington, DC in the mid-90s, where somebody was putting on a free jazz show. Trudy saw me reading a book by Jacob Boehme and based on that, asked me if I would drive her up to NYC for a Sun Ra tribute show at the Knitting Factory. I did, bringing along some friends, and ended up doing lights (ineptly, I'm sure) for Trudy's part of the show. Throughout that weekend, she had more energy than all of us 20-somethings put together, leading us from bar to bar through lower Manhattan, discussing art, music, Israeli poiltics and everything else. When I brought her back home, she gave me a copy of The Immeasurable Equation, Vol. II. That gift inspired me to collect together all the Sun Ra poetry I could find. And because of this list-serv that project turned into the Waitawhile publication.



I'm sure I'm only one of many, many people whom Trudy had a powerful influence on. Spirits like hers are rare and beautiful beyond measure.


James 

James L. Wolf 

Trudy Morse reads Sun Ra's poetry

collected from the international waitawhile sun ra conventions

Trudy Morse
Poet, Musician, Humanitarian, Diarist, Grandmother

Poet, world traveler and performance artist, Trudy Morse, creates other-world performances in the spirit of the legendary Sun Ra. Expect a cosmic, ritual happening. - Earshot, Seattle WA

Trudy Morse has lived in Chevy Chase, MD for some forty years. Her late husband, Malcolm S. Morse, a prominent scientist with the National Bureau of Standards, worked on dynamic thermo-physical measurements in space, before his death in 1986.

Most of her life she was a political activist working on national and international policies, at the same time active in her home and community, while raising six children. Retired from her professional career as a land consultant she spent from four to six months each year travelling the world.

Her interest in her husband’s research on anomalous phenomena has taken her to all five continents. She recalls with particular interest her travels in Africa, Australia, Europe, India, China and New Zealand.

She has traveled extensively in the USA on frequent camping trips, cross-country, in National Parks from the East to the West coasts, as well as in Hawaii and Alaska.

Since the death of Malcolm Morse, Trudy has been travelling with jazz pianist Cecil Taylor, in Europe, Japan, and the USA. While on the road, Trudy wrote poetry, which was later published by Hermes Press.

Aside from regular travel on the road with Cecil Taylor, for the past few years, Trudy has been concentrating on the poetry of the legendary Sun Ra and his Arkestra. Working closely with John Szwed, Chairman of Music and Anthropology at Yale, Trudy has been collecting Sun Ra poetry. She performed with Sun Ra right up until his death, being with him when he left the planet at Birmingham, Alabama. 

Since his death, she has been planning and presenting Tributes to Sun Ra. She appears regularly on radio programs, reading Sun Ra poetry over the old Saturn records or new releases by Evidence.
Among many artists, she has most notably collaborated and performed with Kidd Jordan, Eddy Gale, George Russell, Anthony Braxton, Joe Maneri, Pozzi Escot, Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster, George Lewis, Marshall Allen, India Cooke, Michael Monhart, Muhal Richard Abrams, Dave Burrell, Illuminati Big Band, Don Wherry Ensemble, Cosmic Krewe, Tone Scientists and Boris Raskin Trio.

The ubiquitous septuagenarian has 6 children, 20 grandchildren and 6 greats.

-from Deeplistening.org

*

videos collected from katzjustice.com

My Near Death Experiences by Trudy Morse

Trudy Morse
Hermes at the Crossroads
Hermes Press - 1996 Written September 9, 2000.

A NDE, as it is called today,
is a rather frightening ex-
perience, but since I have
been privileged to have
had three in my lifetime,
actually I feel blessed.

The first NDE was almost
50 years ago, while giving
birth to my son, Michael,
I found myself being twirled
through a dark tunnel, with
a bright light at the end.  I
woke up hysterical, I thought
the baby had died.
I was rather surprised when
the phenomenon was analyzed
many years later, it was I who
was near death, and not the
baby.

As a result of this startling
experience, "Training for Child-
birth" was pioneered in the
Washington, D.C. area with Sue
Patch, sister of Gloria Steinman,
President.  Trudy Morse, Treasurer.
My son, Dr. Melvin Morse,
pediatrician, who writes about
NDE's in children, was the
first baby born, under this new
program, over 40 years ago.

Our program was to train parents
in natural childbirth.  Dr. Dick Reid,
of the UK, was the leader of the
movement in those days.  We were the
first to bring fathers into the delivery
room, exercises for mothers, and
coaching lessons for fathers, to give
support for the mothers.

The second time I had a NDE,
I saw the pattern of
my whole life before me, and
repented, that before the NDE,
I hadn't been a really good cook.
Saying farewell, I asked Malcolm
to forgive me, before passing out
during an asthma attack.

And from that experience I learned
that it's very good to be ready to
meet your maker and a quick review
of your life is a strong probability!

I am still not a very good cook, but
don't feel guilty, since Malcolm
assured me that was not why he
married me.  The medics had revived
me at home, and I felt at peace that
Malcolm had forgiven me during my last
moments.

From that experience, I learned
that life is so fragile, I would try
to enjoy every moment of life with
an extraordinary husband, Malcolm
Morse, who was my partner for
some 40 years.

At the age of 55, when he was diag-
nosed as having cancer, I insisted
that he retire so that we may have
the last years of his life, roaming
the planet, so that he might have
a last look at every location he was
curious about, had read about in science,
literature, the Bible, politics and
even science fiction.  He remained
alive another 13 years.

A practicing Yoga, he died a Yoga's
death, in peace, in lotus position, and
I stayed over 3 hours, singing and
chanting, for an easy departure of the
soul.  I was at peace that I had helped
fulfill his mission of life.  He examined
anomalous phenomena for some six
months each year, all over the globe.

This last NDE at the senior age of 81
was an extraordinary revelation.  An
asthma victim almost all of my life,
I was unable to pull out of an asthma
attack at the home of one of my dearest
members of my extended family, GILA.

I had overdosed on medication, which
brought me deeper in the helpless
stage.  911 was called, the ambulance
appeared immediately, the medics
correctly diagnosed the incident as
pulmonary arrest, and were able to
revive me within the six minutes
before brain damage.  It was a quick,
efficient action that made for the
success of the treatment, every one
cool and collected to do what needed
to be done.

Now, what did I learn in the experience
during my twilight years?

The most touching was the miracle
of the assembly of the family.  They
arrived at the hospital shortly after
the ambulance, and were there with
complete support for me.

As important as modern life-supporting
machinery and professional help is, I
needed my dearest and most beloved
family.  Sarah never left my side and I
deeply felt her presence, as well as
Mary's, who never left Sarah.

Later, Dr. Serena Fox appeared.  She
works at the Trauma Center at Columbia
Hospital for Women, spent time with
the doctor on call, Dr. Remy.  He had
heard of her, by reputation, and with
continual telephone calls to my own
family doctor, Dr. Douglas Shumaker,
they were an extraordinary medical team
put together in this extreme emergency.

Needless to say the nurses are God's
gift of angels to care for us.  They told
me later, the incident took them by
complete shock.  The possibility of
brain damage loomed very large in
their minds.

Now what happened to the NDEer:
First, there was a black cage I was trying
to frantically trying to escape, banging
each corner post.  In despair, I finally
gave up:  "Well, if this is Hell, Heaven is
probably boring."  (This is what my son,
Alan, says I reported late Thursday night
of the discharge."

Although that vision appears to have come
first, what I remember vividly, is a white
casket with heavily clad manacled boots
thumping each corner tightly closed.

Perched on the ceiling, was the Raphael
angel, with lovely face cupped into hands,
watching the event, with much wonder,
watching the casket-thumping, admiring
its beautiful painting of stars, crescents,
and other beautiful colorful patterns,
covering the casket, gleaming, glowing
white, like a Rauschenberg painting.

The thumping of each corner finished,
the casket securely closed, the Raphael
angel perched on the ceiling watching
carefully, wondered:

"Well, which would have been better,
Heaven or Hell?"  And with a wry smile:
"Who knows?"

I had finally been restrained from
fighting the staff who were trying to
insert the indo-trachial tube directly into
the mouth, to hook up the lungs with
the support machine, necessary to get the
lungs working again.  Michael, who had
been helping the staff in their struggle, was
severely scratched, which was an agonizing.
moment for him. Everybody involved later
told me they went into complete shock after
this experience .

I was so determined to keep off the
machines!I had always said I would
rather die than be hooked up on a
machine, and I really meant it!

Now that it is all over, I feel truly
blessed again. With such a remarkable
family who by some miracle arrived,
without anybody knowing where to call
them! With such extraordinary extended
family giving further support.  And the
remark of the social worker really
moved me. When I asked her why
she was visiting me, she told me most
of the elderly patients have no one at
home to go to, and she provides volun-
teers and visiting nurses, meals on wheels.

What a wonderful feeling, to have Sarah
there every moment, demanding that I be
taken home at once, rather than the two
week period they suggested and David,
her husband, taking over all the chores of
the four children left at home during Sarah's
24 hour vigilance.

Sarah decided three days in the hospital
was enough. She demanded my release
at once, and armed with the X-rays, she
drove me to her home. Maurie was there
with a broad smile. Michael had already
left work, and was waiting to pick
me up.

Erica had decorated the front doorway:
"Welcome home". Lauren, who had
grown at least 12 inches during the
summer, had to lean over to embrace me.

And Mary was there with a dinner, eaten
outdoors, overlooking her glorious garden
and little pool with the waterfall creating
the sound of running water which I love.

Michael took me shopping for my bagels,
picked up my medicine. And Guy and Sheri
took over from there.  They explained the
medication, assuring me it was very mild
and only a short course. Dr. Shumaker
assured them it would not interfere with
the effective plendil I take for high blood
pressure.

Dr. Shumaker insisted I call him at home
to strongly advise against my trip to Syria
scheduled for the next day. I felt so much
had done for me, I better not let them
down and create new problems, so I can-
celled the trip. My beautiful extended
family member Paula, of Signature Travel,
got to work at once to assure that I get
money back for airfare.

I came away with the realization that
although I say I am ready to die, there's a
whole crew of people, medical and family,
who seemed to think it important that I
live a little longer.  Like the birth of a baby,
the rebirth of an adult requires instant
loving, nurturing for the health of the
new model.

My son, Dr. Melvin Morse, pediatrician,
who has pioneered in NDE with children,
presents, during his lectures, pictures that
children draw about their experience.
Some are pictures of Jesus, pets, teachers,
or parents, whom they have just seen.
They are usually told to return, depending
upon their belief system.

For me there was no such picture. No
persons, no Jesus, no favorite aunt, mother,
or spouse, only at first, a crude black cage
from which I was frantically pounding,
trying to escape.  In some disgust, I just
gave up, thinking: "Oh  well, Heaven would
probably be boring anyway!"

Then appeared a white casket, with
heavy manacled boots pounding each
corner tightly shut.  Beautiful and gleaming
white. Stars, crescents and colored figures
were painted on the lid, in Rauschenberg
style.  Above it all a Raphael angel watched
from the ceiling, finally wondering if
Heaven or Hell would be better!

Who knows?

WHAT DO I MAKE OF ALL OF THIS?

Our holiest prayer in Judaism is the Shma Yisroel,
Adonoi Elehanu, Adonoi Echod. Hear oh Israel,
The Lord our God, The Lord is one.

The Adonoi is a Hebrew Tetragrammaton,
having four Hebrew Letters, usually transliterated
YHWH or JHVH, that forms a biblical proper
name of God.  Reb Shneyer has told us that
Adonoi means past, present, and future.

I feel a deep sadness that my departed partner,
Malcolm was not witness to this. An internationally
recognized engineer, he was also a Polymath.
Equally as versed in Philosophy, Poetry, Plato,
Plotinus, Literature, Eastern and Western Religions.

In raising our six children, he constantly reminded
me that when the child is born, images of his past,
present, and future are embodied on the brain.

Since I saw no persons, heard no voices, I personally
conclude that it was the high tech machinery, and
the total high level family and medical support
that brought about the return. Maybe, this return
was guided by either the images of the brain
already imprinted at birth:  maybe, God whom Jung
defines as SELF, maybe, just plain GILA.

Death is not Real
But Birth to a
New Life
We go on and on
To higher planes
For eons and aeons
Of Time

The Universe is
Our Home
We explore the
Farthest Recesses
We dwell in the
Finite Mind
Of The All

I die gladly
So I may Know
The Whole Truth
Of Being
At One with
The ALL

from ChicagoIANDS.org

Sun Ra at Chicago's Experimental Sound Studio

A few years ago, John Corbett and his wife, Terri Kapsalis, donated a treasure trove - a historical cornucopia of sounds, articles, ephemera, and images that had been tossed into boxes, made ready for disposal, and subsequently rescued from Alton Abraham's estate - to the University of Chicago and Chicago's Experimental Sound Studio (ESS).  Corbett and Kapsalis mention the event during the Duke University Sun Ra Symposium in 2009.

Since,  ESS has allowed limited access to the archives and I am aware of three artists' works spread over four releases.  I believe that these pieces are available for purchase online and due to the fact that most have only been recently released, I am hoping to draw attention to their efforts by offering streaming audio of the works but will not be offering downloads.  Please support them with the power of your purchase.

First out of the gate was Audio/Video artist Brian Harnetty.  Brian Harnetty is a musician and artist from Ohio, and his work involves overlooked elements of sound.  Many of his pieces transform found material––including field recordings, transcriptions, and historic recordings––into personal sound worlds.  For the past several years, this has led to a focus on projects with specific archives, including the Berea College Appalachian Sound Archives in Kentucky, and the Sun Ra/El Saturn Creative Audio Archive in Chicago.  His music and installations have been performed and shown in America and Europe.  Recordings are available on Atavistic Records, Ruminance (Europe), and Scioto Records.

brianharnetty(dot)com

When Brian Harnetty was commissioned to work with the Sun Ra/El Saturn archives in Chicago, his goal was to develop a series of conversations with Sun Ra through the many recordings in the collection. On one level, the resulting pieces combine these diverse materials to create a sonic collage. On another level, Harnetty uses these elements to reveal multi-layered stories, drawing out the many connections and complexities of the Sun Ra archives.

For this 7" single, entitled "The Sociophonic Key," Harnetty has created a stand-alone work drawn from "The Star Faced One," a 2010 sound installation at the Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago. Despite the variety of samples used many subtle relationships are heard––both literal and fantastic––from Sun Ra rehearsing a group of children fading into an answering machine, to the intensity of a gospel preacher alongside the Arkestra’s invitation to join them in outer space.

"It is a huge, rambling collection of recordings that are only loosely held together by the presence of Sun Ra," explains Harnetty. "There are rehearsals, live concerts, lectures, TV shows, and so on. I spent most of my time listening closely, as a fan and out of curiosity, searching for correlations, links, and routes of connection." In the end, these recordings create networks of reference and dialogue that both point to the past and imagine new futures.

Visit Bandcamp to purchase.

Late last year, on Cuneiform Records, Living by Lanterns released the CD Old Myth/New Science.

"While New Myth/Old Science deliberately avoids any obvious Ra intergalactic tones, it’s joyful enough to make a visitor from Saturn smile." – DownBeat

Co-led by Mike Reed and Jason Adasiewicz, two of the fastest-rising young stars of Chicago's insanely vibrant jazz scene, Living by Lanterns was formed specifically to bring together four of Chicago's and four of New York's leading players for a special and unique project concept.

Commissioned by Experimental Sound Studio (ESS), the music was created in response to material contained in ESS’s vast Sun Ra Audio Archive. Rather than a Sun Ra tribute, Reed and Adasiewicz have crafted a melodically rich, harmonically expansive body of themes orchestrated from fragments extracted from a rehearsal tape marked "NY 1961", featuring Ra on electric piano, John Gilmore on tenor sax and flute, and Ronnie Boykins on bass.

The tunes on Old Myth/New Science were written by the co-leaders based on the 1961 tape. That tape contains no compositions per-se, but there are a lot of stream-of-consciousness ideas and some of these ideas were teased out, hugely expanded upon and turned into the pieces heard here.

"The tape is clearly these ideas they’re hashing out,” Adasiewicz says. “Some of this stuff sounds kind of squirrelly. Some is insanely beautiful....it became our personal arrangements."

"After figuring out the band, the first step in the process was to completely dismiss the idea of commenting or honoring Sun Ra," Reed says. "The more interesting idea was of creating new music using someone's unfinished, unwanted and abandoned material."

Reed and Adasiewicz fully considered the possibilities of taking this very unrefined material and teasing out raw ideas, bits and undeveloped fragments from it, and developing and composing them into full compositions that the band perform and make their own. The music is rich and exciting; full and sparse; mysterious and inviting; challenging and tuneful! And what a band!

Greg Ward – alto saxophone

Taylor Ho Bynum – cornet

Ingrid Laubrock – tenor saxophone

Tomeka Reid – cello

Mary Halvorson – guitar

Jason Adasiewicz – vibraphone

Joshua Abrams – bass

Tomas Fujiwara – drums

Mike Reed – drums, electronics

For Mike Reed, there’s something inherently amusing about assembling such a talent-laden crew to explore music that was discarded by Sun Ra. "We are bringing all these people together to make their mark," Reed says. "That was the premise. With so many leaders in the group and rising stars and collaborators, everybody is trying to make their way through this life. We’re working in the shadows and you have to put a light on."

D/L and hard copy available for purchase at CuneiformRecords.

 Filmmaker Cauleen Smith wraps up her 2-year Chicago residency and research on Sun Ra with her exhibition The Journeyman - an installation, recording studio, and library about artistic process, research and the relationship between an artist and the subjects they revere. The exhibition will be accompanied by the release of a limited edition vinyl record mixed by Smith that includes recordings she made over the course of her project in Chicago and materials found in the Sun Ra archive at Experimental Sound Studio.

Experimental filmmaker Smith has been a “long-term” resident of threewalls’, first joining us in 2010 as part of the Studio Chicago program in conjunction with the Sullivan Galleries at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Initially Smith intended to extend her on-going film work on jazz, radical black creativity, and the American urban matrix to a work on Chicago and the legend and impact of phenom Sun Ra. Her research led her down a winding path to residencies at the University of Chicago, Center for Race and Culture, and Experimental Sound Studio’s Sun Ra archives.

Between time spent in Chicago and teaching in San Diego, Smith produced The Solar Flare Arkestral Marching Band, a series of marching band flash mob street performances inspired by Sun Ra’s Arkestra where Chicago Southside high-school marching bands would play a single Sun Ra song arranged for them by local musicians and composers. This series was recorded as part of a number of short films that Smith made while in the city, culminating in two exhibitions: A Seed is a Star, on exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (May 12-September 16th, 2012) and The Journeyman at threewalls. Both exhibitions cultivate a specific, immersive experience or manipulation of space, with her exhibition at threewalls’ generating the character of research, with study, listening and recording spaces butted up against each other in a meditation on the process of research, creation and the making of myth– both in homage to Sun Ra’s own intensive auto-didact methods and Smith’s experience studying his extensive archives.

Cauleen Smith (born 1967) is a filmmaker whose work reflects upon the everyday possibilities of the black imagination. Smith’s films have been featured in group exhibitions at the Houston Contemporary Art Museum; the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin; and the New Museum, New York. Beginning in 1994, she wrote, directed, and produced her first narrative feature film, Drylongso (1998), which was selected for the American Spectrum of Sundance Film Festival, and won best feature film at both the Urbanworld Film Festival and the Los Angeles Pan-African Film Festival Smith earned an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Please visit Three Walls for more info.

Most recently, Atavistic has released Brian Harnetty's CD, The Star-Faced One, arranged from pieces culled from his audio visual installation.  From Brian's Website:

(It is) an album-length version of a 2010 sound installation based on the Sun Ra/El Saturn Audio Archive, which was commissioned with the generous support of the Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago. The title is borrowed from a poem by Konstantine Balmont (via Igor Stravinsky), which is appropriate for the illusive and enigmatic Sun Ra:

“His eyes were like stars, like flames which furrow space.  His visage was like the sun when it shines at its zenith.  The luminous colors of the heavens, purple, azure, and gold, dappled the gorgeous robe he wore to be reborn among us....”

On one level, this piece is a way to access a vast collection and explore the many facets, dichotomies, contradictions, and beauty contained within.  The collection in itself is already a kind of large-scale composition, a finite world that points to the universe.  My contribution is but one of many pieces that can come from it.

I am not a jazz musician.  I cannot lay claim to Sun Ra’s history, nor can I ever fully understand him or his music.  But I can listen, intently, and enter a dialogue, bringing my own knowledge and thought and experience.  How to enter a dialogue with Sun Ra?  Start playing along, always listening with imagination and empathy....soon, your own voice emerges, runs along side, converses with, connects, while all along staying independent; they are “co-habitating” together.

In this conversation, there is also the gift economy: finding a way to bring the archives out of the defined world and into the daylight, to hold them, and pass them on.  Their energy lies in the exchange, and is how they can stay alive and in motion.

This recent release is available at Amazon and elsewhere.

“Brian Harnetty’s The Star-Faced One travels the peculiarities and particularities of a collection of interplanetary fragment-gems: the Sun Ra/El Saturn Collection in the Creative Audio Archive at ESS. His excursion into this unsystematic cache of rehearsal tapes, recitations, studio recordings, concert documents, and unlabeled appropriations, accidentally handed down to us through an unforgiving yet generous history, stakes no claim to Sun Ra’s legacy––something which speaks for itself over and over again––but instead takes a joyful listener’s ‘cosmic pathway’ into its own unique imagistic swirl. Brian and his musical collaborators proceed in a spirit of serious play, respectful intrusion, and insistent openness, releasing hi-, lo-, and mid-fi sounds from the past into a new future of revelatory listening.”

Lou Mallozzi
Director, Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago

2nd Chance: WHEN - Homage Series vol. 1: Sun Ra (2009)

I've heard more than a few mixes of Sun Ra's music and this one seems head and shoulders above many.  I don't know anything about 'When' or this release but it's surely a plunderifically joyous listen.

UPDATE!!  Thanks to Lucky for providing some info about When.  It is a project/band of musician, Lars Pedersen, of Norway.  Here is a Wiki page with some additional information.

Lars Pedersen (b. 1961, Oslo Norway) his father, Tore Pedersen, was a Norwegian musical composer. At an early age, the younger Pedersen performed with his four older sisters and old brother; they were often compared to the Jackson 5 and The Partridge Family, popular bands of the time. Being in the spotlight at a young age, Pedersen met Chuck Berry and other stars.

In the late 1970s Pedersen played in Hærverk, one of the first Norwegian punk bands, and later – as the 80's arrived – went on to form the band The Last James. The Last James explored The Beatles/Beach Boys sound, releasing three albums, The Last James, Grape, and Kindergarten. During the 1980s and early 90's, Pedersen was also a member of the experimental/new wave group Holy Toy, together with Andrej D. Nebb.

Spacebound

When
Homage Series Vol. 1: Sun Ra (2009)
Jester Records Norway Trick 044 [CD]

1.  The Angel Speaks   3:47
2.  Spacebound   3:18
3.  Venus   2:03
4.  The Cosmic Ray   2:36
5.  (Talking About) Nuclear War   3:27
6.  Celestial Travels   2:57
7.  Disco 2009   3:59
8.  Black Sky And Cosmic Rays   3:20
9.  China Gate Revisited   4:31
10. In This New Space Age   2:53
11. History Is History   4:40

-FLAC-

RS

HF

or

-320-

RS

HF

Hanging out with the man from Saturn

I stumbled across this great blog entry; some great pics and the story gets better after the jump.

Hanging out with the man from Saturn

Several people have asked me to tell the story of my encounters with Sun Ra.

Over a span of about six or seven years, I caught Sun Ra and his Arkestra in Boston at least eleven times. While that’s not a lot by Deadhead standards, it’s probably more than I’ve seen any other musician live, with the exception of the great khyal singer Bhimsen Joshi.

To an alienated, jazz-obsessed teenager in Boston’s western suburbs, the knowledge that there was a bandleading madman who claimed to be from outer space was incredibly welcome. My high school library maintained subscriptions to a wide variety of periodicals — the usual suspects (Time, Newsweek, Life), some slightly more unconventional choices (The New Yorker, Ms.), and a few that were pretty bizarre. Of these last, there were three that made a huge impression on me: The Village Voice (where I first read about conceptual art, Nam June Paik and Charlotte Moorman), Source: Music of the Avant-Garde (where I first heard of Cornelius Cardew, Christo, Steve Reich and Alvin Lucier), and Downbeat (where I kept up to date on all the latest jazz happenings, and where I first learned of the existence of Sun Ra).

It was during my junior year in high school that I found out Sun Ra and the Arkestra would be performing for a solid week of gigs at Paul’s Mall in downtown Boston. Of course I was completely ineligible to go and spend hours in a jazz bar; I was fifteen. But I went anyway, and got to the club at least an hour before showtime. I was the first audience member to arrive, and somehow managed to talk my way through the bouncer. I’d brought my camera, a noisy Miranda SLR loaded with Tri-X black & white film which I “pushed” to ASA 1600 (wow! archaic darkroom talk!).

The first night I took pictures; two or three rolls’ worth. The following day I developed them at school (and went into Boston to hear the Arkestra again), and the day after that I printed them and took a sheaf of prints into Paul’s Mall, where I showed them to the musicians. Sun Ra was pleased, and autographed one of the photographs with a ball-point pen: “Space Age Greetings from Sun Ra,” with the date. Alas, the ink has faded on the photograph and can no longer be read.

The band was promoting their releases on Impulse!, particularly “Space is the Place.” There was quite a bit of that material presented at Paul’s Mall. Some elements were the same from night to night; they always played “Shadow World,” and there was always some sort of extended synthesizer solo from Sun Ra. And there was a lot of great soloing. Having the entire band crowded onto the tiny stage at Paul’s Mall was a triumph of space management.

After that? Not much Sun Ra for a few years, although I continued to buy records and had quite a good collection by the time I moved into Somerville to share an apartment with two friends in 1977. Which was the year that Sun Ra’s Arkestra played the Cyclorama, a huge circular hall in Boston’s South End that was a superb venue for their brand of outer-space theater.

I persuaded about four or five of my hippie friends to come, and we bought tickets for the second of two sets. Which was the right thing to do: the first set lasted two hours. The second set lasted four, and concluded in the wee hours of the morning with a massive drumming session that featured a number of dancers and a fire-eater who blew huge spheres of flame into the air while the band roared and pounded. One of my roommates had ingested a powerful psychoactive substance which was at the peak of its influence at this point; I turned to look at him and was rewarded by a facial expression: mouth gaping in amazement, eyes wide open with pupils the size of quarters.

I didn’t meet Sun Ra that time. We went home, completely blown away.

Ahhh, but the next time Sun Ra came to town, I was ready.

(Continue reading at Warren Senders' blog)

Inspired by Sun Ra: 'To Sun Ra' a poem by Mark Kerstetter

To Sun Ra

You were born Herman,
as in “Herman Munster”
but they called you Sonny.
You called yourself Sun.
The stars fell on a bipolar Alabama
and you learned to read them
across the black and white keys.
Some of the greatest musicians, you said, pass
into oblivion.
Traveling you would stop to enjoy
a small town marching band.
The story I love most is how
you’d play any radio station.
What kind of music inspires you? they asked.
All of it, you answered.
No, really.
Everything, you repeated.
You meant it,
and you were the only one.
I wish I could hear with your ears,
see with your eyes.

Please stop by and tell Mark what his poem means to you.
via The Mockingbird Sings

King Britt on Sun Ra - Noise from the 18th Floor

Cosmic Culture: A Sonic Journey into Afrofuturism

2007 Pew Fellow King Britt has had numerous influences during his international career as a DJ, performer, and composer.  For this program of African-American music inspired by science fiction, the Grammy Award-nominated artist has selected performances by those who seem to have a spiritual connection with a greater force. In part one, titled “Yesterday,” Britt’s mix of 10 compositions includes the mystical Sun Ra in a live performance of “Space Is the Place” with an overlay of an interview with Britt’s mother Pearl and “Feel” by George Duke, which, according to King, “just takes you there.” The journey continues with “Today,” a mega-mix of over two-dozen pieces. From Los Angeles-based band Build an Ark, which has kept Sun Ra’s spiritual message alive with songs such as “The Stars Are Singing Too,” to Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock,” which Britt describes as an “anthem of our generation,” this collection is a reflection of his artistic vision. Cosmic Culture also features the music of jazz greats Dee Dee Bridgewater, Herbie Hancock, and many more, and closes with a third installment, “Tomorrow,” which features a new composition, “Beyond the Sun,” written by Britt especially for this program under his pseudonym Fhloston Paradigm. The program is produced and hosted by Tracey Tanenbaum with Rodney Whittenberg of Melodyvision as sound engineer. Photo by Donna Burch.

Jump to site.

 The Pew Fellowship site offers a pdf of the below playlist and a free download of the Fhloston Paradigm track!

Current Schedule (all times listed in EST):

Cosmic Culture: A Sonic Journey Into Afrofuturism with King Britt: 8 a.m., 10 a.m., noon, 10 p.m., midnight, 2 a.m.

King Britt Playlist:

Cosmic Culture: A Sonic Journey into Afrofuturism

Part 1: Yesterday



“Kawaida”

Kawaida



“Gamla Stan”

Don Cherry

plus: an interview with Alondra Nelson



“Ostinato”

Herbie Hancock (as Mwandishi)



“John McLaughlin”

Miles Davis



"Space Is the Place (Live)"

Sun Ra

plus: an interview with Pearl Britt



“Feel”

George Duke



“Rien Neva Plus”

Funk Factory



“Cabral”

Mtume feat. Dee Dee Bridgewater



“Radhe Shyam”

Alice Coltrane

plus: an interview with Sun Ra

Part 2: Today (Megamix)



“African Roots”

King Tubby



“Eyjafjallajokul”

Mad Professor



“Zodiac Shit”

Flying Lotus



“Ahoulaghuine Akaline (King Britt Remix)”

Bombino



“Teleport”

Headless Headhunters



“Nights Over Nantes”

Jneiro Jarel



“Castles”

HouseShoes feat. Jimetta Rose



“Brgundy”

MndDsgn



“Connect”

Some Other Ship



“All in Forms (Leatherette Remix)”

Bonobo



“Light Odyssey”

Union



“Planetary Analysis”

King Britt feat. Rich Media



“Discipline 3”

Ras G

plus: an interview with Sun Ra

“Heritage Ship”

Madlib



“Emotional Quotient Deringer of Chiek Anta Diop”

King Britt feat. Rilners Jouegck



“New Wave”

Common feat. Stereolab



“The Stars Are Singing Too”

Build an Ark



“Bug in the Bassbin”

Innerzone Orchestra



“Raven”

Actress



“Voodoo Ray”

A Guy Called Gerald



“Dem Young Scones”

Moodymann



“Flower (King Britt’s Underwater Garden Dub Remix)”

Soul Dhamma



“Planet Rock”

Afrika Bambaataa



“Mozaik”

Zomby



“Endgame”

Antipop Consortium



“Loveless”

4Hero feat. Ursula Rucker

Part 3: Tomorrow



“Beyond the Sun (Live)”

Fhloston Paradigm



“Endeavors for Never

(The Last Time We Spoke You Said You Were Not Here. I Saw You Though.)”

Shabazz Palaces

Noise from the 18th Floor: Behind the scenes with King Britt from Pew Center for Arts & Heritage on Vimeo.

Sun Ra's Departure - Black Classical Compilation 2010

In April, 2010, Blackclassical began soliciting contributions towards 'The Sun Ra Project.'  The idea was to collect original recordings, original cover versions, and visual artwork from readers to be stirred into a monumental and fascinating 2-hour mix celebrating Sun Ra and marking the anniversary of his earthly departure.  The result of the collective efforts was originally presented as a webcast on Space Invader Radio on May 30, 2010.  Unfortunately, I miscalculated the difference between local and broadcast times (and missed 1/2 the show) and Blackclassical kindly send me the below.  Many Meni Amens & Thanks to BlackClassical for creating and sharing this Cosmo Alter Ra-recording. 

 MF or RS

The show:

RobD @NorthernComfort: I’ll wait for Sun Ra

BUG: Paradis Afrique (A Tribute To Sun Ra)

Seja Herói and BKCL: Spaceways at 125th & Lenox

I.H.C.: Space Probe

I.H.C.: Twilight at Rome

On Ka’a Davis: Festival of Strange Affinity

We’re Late for Class: Stanley’s Sun Ra Conga Line Experience

Tani Palefski : Along the Tiber

On Ka’a Davis: Return Send

I.H.C.: Lanquidity (Dub)

RAA: Intergalactic Racecar Driver

VDSO: Red Pyramid

UYA: I Let Him In

UYA: Carefree

Jimmy Ghaphery/Will Bryce: Theme of the Stargazers

Ratchet Orchestra: Love on a Faraway Planet

LA BRUHA DESI LA: Cosmic Wave

Joyful Noise Big Band: D.27-II/Life Is Splendid

I.H.C.: Space is the Place

2nd Chance: Marshall Allen's Arrival

Maestro Marshall Allen turns 88 today.

Marshall Allen played reeds with Sun Ra for decades. Matthew Shipp has created one of the most distinctive piano voices of his generation. Joe Morris anchors on bass, an instrument he mastered after first establishing himself as a guitarist. At the CareFusion Newport Folk Festival in Newport, R.I., the meeting of three top free improvisers performing Night Suites 1-5.
Personnel: Marshall Allen, winds; Matthew Shipp, piano; Joe Morris, bass.
Available for streaming or download HERE.


direct download link
(left click to play, right click to save)

Marshall's bio at AMG:

A longtime member of Sun Ra's Arkestra, alto saxophonist Marshall Allen later assumed leadership of the group following the deaths of Ra and his immediate successor, John Gilmore. He was also a regular collaborator of Babatunde Olatunji, in the process emerging as one of the first jazz musicians to fuse the avant-garde with traditional African music.

Allen was born May 25, 1924, in Louisville, KY, beginning clarinet lessons at the age of ten. After enlisting with the U.S. Army's renowned Buffalo Soldiers in 1942, he played clarinet and alto saxophone with the 17th Division Special Service Band, subsequently forming a trio with pianist Art Simmons and guitarist Don Byas while stationed in Paris. After spending the late '40s touring and recording behind James Moody, Allen studied at the Paris Conservatory of Music before returning stateside in 1951, settling in Chicago and forming his own dance band. He also began writing his first original compositions.

Circa 1956, Allen met Sun Ra, joining the pianist's legendary Arkestra two years later. He would go on to lead its reed section for more than four decades, over time earning renown as one of the most distinctive and original saxophonists of the postwar era. In tandem with tenorist Gilmore and baritone saxophonist Pat Patrick, Allen played on more than 200 Sun Ra recordings. He also developed his own reed instrument (dubbed the "morrow") by attaching a saxophone mouthpiece to an open-hole wooden body but failed to patent his creation, which is now commercially available under different names.

Whenever the Arkestra went on hiatus, Allen moonlighted with Olatunji and his Drums of Passion, even learning to build and play the West African multi-stringed instrument the kora; he also guested on live dates and recordings headlined by a multitude of next-generation musicians, including jam band Phish, avant rock combo Sonic Youth, and hip-hop upstarts Digable Planets. When Sun Ra died in 1993, the Arkestra's reins were handed to Gilmore, who himself passed away two years later; at that point Allen assumed control, leading the 18-piece ensemble well into the next millennium. In addition to giving master classes, lectures, and demonstrations of Sun Ra's enduring creative principles, Allen also founded the El Ra label, home to such latter-day Arkestra recordings as A Song for the Sun and Music for the 21st Century. 

by Jason Ankeny

In 2005, Marshall released a stunning album of duets with NRBQ pianist Terry Adams called Ten by Two.  The CD artwork is a throwback to the glory years of Sun Records, with the album title simply stating that 10 tracks are from the two performers, pianist Terry Adams (NRBQ) - who also plays a Yamaha DX-7 synthesizer - and alto saxophonist Marshall Allen (Sun Ra Arkestra).

Five numbers each are from the August 18, 1996, performance at the Brooklyn Museum and June 27, 1997, set during the Toronto DowntownJazz Festival. What makes the pairing click is how they easily flow into any number of musical genres - classic pop, jazz, avant-garde, blues - without a hitch. A neat gem is "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" - the iconic masterpiece from Hal David and Burt Bacharach - while the ragtime vibe is vivacious throughout "My Little Brother."

Adams and Allen obviously have a special professional/personal respect for each other and it is clearly heard note-by-note during the serious fun.
Amazon Review

Interstellar Low-Ways

Ten By Two
Terry Adams and Marshall Allen
 

1.    Prelude To A Kiss (Live)   5:57
2.    Wrong Gasket (Live)   3:29
3.    Cocktails For Two (Live)   3:50
4.    Blue Skies (Live)   5:20
5.    Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head (Live)   2:56
6.    Friday The 13th (Live)   4:30
7.    Hey Little Brother (Live)   4:39
8.    Interstellar Low Ways (Live)   5:22
9.    I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good (Live)   4:44
10.  Evil Art (Live)   3:45

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Sun Ra Arrival Day Mix - Black Classical (2010)

Does anyone else remember and miss the amazing blog, Black Classical?  No one created mixtapes with such depth and diversity as these guys.  Of all the blogs that have disappeared over the last couple of years, this is one of a handful that I miss the most.

In May 2010, Black Classical presented this mix by Monohub who deftly blends both rare and familiar snippets of Arkestral performances into a fascinating long form composition.  I hope you enjoy his 2-hour tribute as we remember and celebrate the arrival of one of the world's great thinkers and musicians.

Many Thanks to Greg and Monohub of Black Classical for the original broadcast.

HF or RS

Samarai Celestial - Cosmic Gold Millennium (1997)

An intergalactic journey beyond the normal realm of jazz from the drummer of Sun Ra's Intergalactic Arkestra. Take a free-flowing improvisational trip through the cosmos, exploring the limitlessness of traditional, avant, and free jazz, and the universal power of music.

Samarai played drums for the Sun Ra Intergalactic Arkestra steadily from 1979-1985 & again from 1994-1997 when he passed away from a heart problem. On his two albums, the Sun Ra Arkestra’s cosmically gifted jazz drummer invents electro space funk!  Isis Sun is his first solo album & it’s Out, but not like you’re thinkin’.  Long, improvised, jams heavy on rhythm & hypnosis, and the Words of the Universe.  Dedicated to and inspired by his teacher Sun Ra and ancient Egypt, and designed to realign the Cosmos into their proper harmonic & rhythmic cycles, Cosmic Gold Millennium extended the electronic harmonic convergence and added a second disc of straight ahead acoustic jazz. 

It featured: 

Samarai Celestial (Drums), Samarai Celestial (Vocals), Samarai Celestial (Main Performer), Tyrone Hill (Trombone), Rick Iannacone (Guitar), Bobby Zankel (Sax (Alto), Jason Oettel (Bass - Acoustic)

via

Samarai Celestial
Cosmic Gold Millennium (1997)
Carrot Top Records  SAKI014 [CD]

Disc 1: CREATION'S CALL
1.  Creation's Call   13:06
2.  New Formalation   18:24
3.  Celestial Enlightenment   13:58
4.  New Child   14:46
5.  Ra's Shadow   7:44 

Disc 2:  INTERGALACTIC COMPOSITORY OF FUNK
1.  Omni Joyride   4:54
2.  Cosmo 4x4   4:50
3.  Planet Shade   2:00
4.  Sun Valley   1:53
5.  John Gilmore   2:26
6.  Universe in Self   1:47
7.  Angel Speech   1:50
8.  Jah Hoo Doo Man   8:12
9.  Cosmic Gold Millennium   13:16
10. Angelic Space   21:36
11. The Kidd of Jordan   9:05

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RS

HF1 + HF2

Disc 2
RS
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RS

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Following is an informative 2008 biography from the Knoxville, TN Webzine, Metro Pulse.

At times, he garbed himself in the same outlandish threads and spoke in the same cosmically attuned patois of his mentor, Sun Ra, the great Philadelphia freak-jazz bandleader; at others, he drove patchwork cars and scrimped to pay bills, as humble and down-to-earth as anyone else who played music for a living in relatively conservative Knoxville, Tenn., which he called home for nine of his 43 years on earth.

And he had a temper, too, though it showed infrequently. But when it was aroused, usually by an act of bigotry or racial insensitivity, it could be as ferocious in its intensity as one of his frenetic drum solos.

But most people who knew him hereabouts remember Samarai Celestial, nee Eric Walker, for his great personal warmth and generosity of spirit, as well as for the formidable natural talents that led many to declare the Savannah, Ga.-born drummer as powerful and creative a musician as any they’d encountered. The latter opinion takes on heightened meaning when you consider it has been voiced by several members of Knoxville’s distinguished jazz fraternity, a group that includes the estimable pianist/composer Donald Brown.

Brown has been instrumental in organizing a tribute to Samarai Celestial, to be held Sunday, April 13, as a sort of kickoff to this year’s Knoxville Jazz Festival, which gets into full swing later that week. The tribute show will feature performances by the Bill Scarlett Group, featuring Tom Johnson, Taylor Coker and Darryl Johnson, as well as the Rocky Wynder Group, with Chico Crawford, Keith Brown, and Harold Nagee. Other special guests will include master percussionist James Pippin, and perhaps a guest drum solo by Samarai Celestial’s son, Nija.

“It had been in the back of my mind for a year or so, that we needed to do some kind of tribute to Samarai,” says Brown of his friend and musical collaborator, who died from what was apparently a congenital heart problem in November of 1997. “Rocky and I had talked for a long time about how much we missed him. We thought this might be a good time to have some kind of tribute, remind everyone what a great musician he was, and of the contributions he made to the Knoxville music scene.”

Born in Savannah and self-taught on drums, the young Eric Walker was playing clubs by age 13. Throughout his late teens and early twenties, his was the life of an itinerant musician as he traveled and played in cities throughout the southeast.

He met Sun Ra through a friend during a stint in New Orleans in 1979. Legend has it that the mystically inclined bandleader, shortly after meeting 25-year-old Walker—by then a member of the Nation of Islam, having taken the name Sami—stopped in mid-conversation and declared, “This is my new drummer,” despite never having heard him play.

Su Ra’s influence on the young musician was considerable; he gave him a new name, a new fashion sense, and tamed some of Sami’s youthful rage and anomie with his own philosophy of universal love and spiritual harmony.

“He was like a father to Samarai,” says Pippin, who would later grow close to Samarai during his time in Knoxville, when the two played regular shows with local keyboard whiz Marcus Shirley. “He was a bandleader, a father, and a teacher. You have to remember, too, that it says a great deal that he chose Samarai. He wouldn’t get just anyone to play for him; it takes a unique person to play for Sun Ra.”

As a member of the Sun Ra Intergalactic Cosmo Love Adventure Arkestra, Samarai spent a good deal of his time in Philadelphia, the Arkestra’s home base. There he met pretty Lisa Harvey, a cosmetology student, who would later become his wife, re-christened by her new fiance with the name Saphorai.

Saphorai would later recount that Samarai’s opening line, ventured while the two were standing side by side on the city’s number 13 trolley, was: “The creator sent you here to be my soul mate.”

But between touring and recording with the Arkestra, Samarai continued to wander. He was living in Chattanooga in 1987, playing regularly at a Holiday Inn when Knoxville jazz luminaries like saxophonist Rocky Wynder caught wind of the phenomenally talented drummer living off lounge gigs in the smaller city to the south.

Wynder was playing and booking shows at Annie’s in the Old City, the little jazz club later known as Lucille’s; he arranged for Samarai to sit in with his own combo one evening at Annie’s, and instantly fell in love with the younger man’s playing.

“We’d call different types of rhythms, and he was right there,” says Wynder, now a spry octogenarian. “Fiery! That was it. He was an all-around drummer. He could play any type of rhythm—jazz, meringue, Dixieland. Funk? Rock ’n’ roll? Waltzes? ‘Here I am!’ He was a Drummer.”

Says saxophonist and former University of Tennessee jazz instructor Bill Scarlett, who also played extensively with Samarai during his time in Knoxville: “He was sharp at adapting things he heard, without being taught, probably because he was self-taught as a drummer. He was very creative, excellent at getting into the musical meaning of the piece, playing things that were relevant other than just holding a steady beat. He was not mechanical in that sense, although he certainly had a whole lot of mechanical technique.”

Brown, who came to Knoxville to join the UT jazz faculty in 1989, met Samarai later than most of his colleagues, but would eventually form perhaps the closest bond with the drummer. In addition to playing regular Lucille’s gigs with Brown, Samarai would go on to tour Europe with him, play high-profile shows in New York, and hold down the rhythm on two of Brown’s CDs, including the Grammy-nominated Send One Your Love.

“One thing I loved was that you could hear the history of so many traditions in his playing, the history of R&B, the history of jazz, the history of blues,” Brown says. “But you could also hear the future. And he had this great quality where he wasn’t afraid to try anything, and he would usually make it work. He was one of the most creative musicians I’ve ever had a chance to work with. He was a constant reminder of what life is all about, what music is all about, about being in the moment and not playing it safe.”

But even more than his wondrous playing, his new Knoxville friends loved Samarai for his warm heart and his infectious personality. “Everybody liked Samarai; he was just a happy dude,” says Wynder. “He’d see you around, and it wasn’t none of this little voice, ‘Uh, well, uh, how you doing?’ It was like, ‘Heeeeyyyy, maaaan!’ He always had his arms open for you.”

Many of the obvious trappings of Sun Ra’s influence—the futuristic garments and cosmic hepcat speech—apparently fell by the wayside when Samarai came to Knoxville. Says Pippin, “I imagine that he changed some of that when he came to a place like East Tennessee; he seemed more subtle when I first met him. But Sun Ra was still there. He taught Samarai to be an entertainer, not just a percussionist.”

Even in “subdued” mode, Samarai trafficked freely and gleefully with the city’s jazz musicians, playing regular shows at Lucille’s and the now-defunct Planet Earth, picking up additional party gigs or sideman stints when and wherever he could. By the time he left Knoxville for Savannah in the waning months of his life, Samarai had made countless club appearances in town, recorded and toured with Brown, and put out a couple of his own idiosyncratic local CD releases—Cosmic Gold Millennium and Isis Sun—in between tours with the Arkestra.

Although he played as often as he could find the work, Samarai’s existence in Knoxville was often hand to mouth. “He was one of those people who was so wrapped up in his art that he rarely thought of the details of living, maintaining a car, paying the rent,” Scarlett remembers. “He overlooked that stuff sometimes. He quite often didn’t have a car, so people were always giving him rides to gigs.”

Wynder remembers Samarai having “two or three cars, at different times. But they were all what we used to call struggy buggies, or roustabouts. They’d get you to point B, and then maybe you’d get back to point A. Maybe.

“He had one, it was an Oldsmobile that a fellow was supposed to have put a new engine in. He was riding around one day, and he called me. Said, ‘Hey, I’m stranded out here on Asheville Highway. And it ain’t gas.’ I said, ‘Okay, I’ll come and get you.’ Between all of us, we wouldn’t ever leave him hanging. And his spirit wasn’t ever down.”

But some say Samarai’s last years in Knoxville were troubled. Perhaps it was the dearth of opportunities for a working musician—for though Knoxville had many experienced jazz players, many of them taught or worked other trades to earn the bulk of their living. Or perhaps it was the lack of acceptance for some of his more otherworldly musical ideas; his local CDs, for instance, showcased electronic percussion experiments and bizarro improvisations that he could find few venues for here in town.

Or perhaps it was the small-mindedness he occasionally ran across, bigotries that are unfortunately still a part of life in Knoxville, even in the 21st century. Scarlett remembers a rare incident when Samarai flashed his infamous temper at a local auto shop well-known for high-balling its minority customers.

“He got a bill that was three or four times the estimate,” Scarlett remembers. “So he went back into the showroom and started screaming, ‘Is this how you treat a n-----? Well, I’m a n-----, and I’ll show you how a n----- acts!’ By the time it was over, they took him in the back and cut more than half his bill. It was a sad incident, but it was comical too, the way he went off. The kind of thing where you have to laugh to keep from crying.”

Whatever pressures beset him also led to his divorce from Saphorai—mother of his children Nija and Osha, as well as his stepson, Donald Jaye—though the two remained close until the end of Samarai’s life.

The first sign of Samarai’s failing health came in 1994, a few months after his final split with Saphorai. His former spouse spoke to him on the phone twice that day; she would later recall that he said he felt sick, and a little short of breath when she called that morning. Upon speaking to him later that afternoon, it was evident that he had gone into cardiac arrest, his left shoulder throbbing with pain.

An X-ray taken later at University of Tennessee Hospital revealed the problem; Samarai’s heart was terribly enlarged, swollen such that it extended nearly two-thirds of the way across his chest.

Scarlett remembers that Samarai was supposed to receive federal disability compensation shortly thereafter; but there was a catch. “Like everything with our government bureaucracy, it was taking a while to go through,” Scarlett says. “And in the meantime, he had to eat, and he started playing again, which was against the stipulations of the disability. They caught him, and that prevented him from ever receiving disability.

“It was such a sad thing, terrible. And it was ridiculous. He was a young man, so he could have even received a heart transplant. Except that would have been hundreds of thousands of dollars he didn’t have. ”

What’s more, playing in his trademark physically frenetic style was strictly against doctor’s orders. As Samarai continued to gig to earn a living, his condition only worsened. “I remember talking to him at the end, and he sounded just awful, like he was struggling just to talk,” Scarlett remembers. “It was heartbreaking for me just to speak to him.

In 1996, he moved back to Savannah, to see his beloved father through the final stages of prostate cancer. Even after his father’s death, there was a brief time when Samarai reportedly harbored new hope; he was planning a tour with Donald Brown, some solo dates, and also another jaunt with the Arkestra.

Then he collapsed during a performance at the Savannah Jazz Festival in September of 1997 and spent the next two weeks in the hospital. Upon his release, he cancelled his upcoming appearances, as his physical condition, already poor, had deteriorated into a miserable constancy of nausea and wheezing.

On Sunday, Nov. 28, 1997, Samarai Celestial left this earth.

Donald Brown believes the upcoming tribute is important, in that it will expose younger jazz aficionados in town to one of the most gifted musicians ever to live in this jazz-rich city. “For some of the newer generations that pass through the university, this was a truly creative, outstanding individual that they may never have been aware of.”

More than that, however, he wants to honor the memory of an especially dear companion, a friend, father, and fellow musician the likes of whom most of see perhaps once in our lifetime. “He was at the core such a kind, warm person,” Brown remembers. “He was the kind of person who would give you anything; the kind of person with the qualities I cherish in a fellow human being.”

“At the end of his life, he shouldn’t have been playing, otherwise maybe he’d still be here,” muses Rocky Wynder philosophically. “But what you gonna do? He didn’t let no grass grow on his feet, man. And he was a person who took the bitters with the sweets.

“But out of all his downfalls, he always had that special something. He might not have had a pot to piss in, or a window to throw it out, but he was always jolly. He was still Samarai.”