Sun Ra Tribute WKCR-FM May 2010

In response to a remark I made in a previous post, I was recently asked about Charles Blass, former program director at WKCR-FM (currently on sabbatical) and if it is possible to hear some of his Sun Ra radio broadcasts.  To my knowledge, none of WKCR's shows are archived.  Fortunately, last spring I made an effort to record the Sun Ra Arrival Day celebration.  In celebration of the anniversary of Sun Ra's arrival on planet earth, WKCR-FM broadcast 9 hours (in two parts) of Sun Ra's music on May 21st and 22nd, 2010. Unfortunately, I missed the first 4 hour segment but managed to record the stream for the 2nd part.

I quickly realized that trying to manage a 5 hour track on an iPod isn't much fun so I broke down the show into 5 segments of approximately 1 hour each. I hope you enjoy this show as much as I have and if anyone was able to capture the first segment, please share!

RS Links

Hour 1

Hour 2

Hour 3

Hour 4

Hour 5
or 

MegaUpload
Hour 1
Hour 2
Hour 3
Hour 4
Hour 5

Regarding Mr. Blass, I found this bit of information about him at All About Jazz:

Charles has programmed & hosted on WKCR (http://WKCR.org) for over two decades and in the community am involved in production, engineering, management and promotion. His primary program is 'Audio Gumbo', in the 'New Music' department; he also does Jazz and World shows. Charles especially enjoys producing & mixing live radio concerts. See http://www.lovevolv.org for Radio Calendar and other listings.
Charles Blass is a music and content advisor. Charles has extensive experience as a music writer, radio programmer, producer and Internet content developer. He has written liner notes for a number of albums and contributed to several books on music. Charles is the Founder and Director of Lovevolv, Inc, a not-for-profit arts & education company, and Co-Founder of the new music network LiveWired Music, http://livewiredmusic.org .
Charles is now developing content and an artist community at http://ArtistOwned.com - See http://www.lovevolv.org/

I originally posted this on the fantastic blog Pathway to Unknown Worlds on May 25, 2010 which happened to be Marshall Allen's birthday.  I had planned on saving this post for Adventure-Equation until May 2011 but I thought if one person was interested in hearing this now, then perhaps others would be too.  I love the picture below of Marshall Allen so much that I just couldn't bear to remove it (despite the fact that it's nowhere close to his birthday right now).

Happy (belated) Birthday, Maestro Allen!

Sun Ra: The Magic Sun Bonus Material 1966 (video)

In 1966, film maker and avant-garde musician, Phill Niblock, created a short film of the Arkestra.  The film was remastered and re-released on DVD a few years ago and included not only the original 17 minute film but 16 minutes of bonus material featuring pictures of Arkestra members and  music, poetry, and a brief monologue recorded by Sun Ra.  I recognize the poetry from the recent Norton spoken word releases.

The information below refers to the film, The Magic Sun and not necessarily the DVD Bonus Material presented below.

Musicians seen but not heard: Sun Ra (p, strings); Walter Miller (tp); Marshall Allen (as, fl, strings); Danny Davis (as, fl, strings); John Gilmore (ts, perc, strings); Pat Patrick (bars, strings); Robert Cummings (bcl, strings); Ronnie Boykins (b, strings); Clifford Jarvis (d); Herby Griffin (d); Jimmy Johnson (d, perc); James Jacson (log drums, perc); Akhbar (prob. perc).

New York City, 1966

This was a 17-minute high-contrast black-and-white film made by Phill Niblock. It was not a performance recording; in order to reate a silhouette effect, Niblock says he filmed the band in extreme close-up shots in an apartment illuminated by a single light bulb. He also filmed the band on the roof of a building and used negatives for most of that footage. Danny Ray Thompson remembered the film as "all shadows, all negatives." The soundtrack was taken from previously released material on Saturn. According to Chris Trent, this was "Celestial Fantasy" (from When Angels Speak of Love) and "The Shadow World" (from The Magic City); "Strange Strings" is mentioned in the credits but not heard.

The film was shown at the Arkestra's Carnegie Hall concerts on April 12 and 13, 1968, and reissued on video in Europe in 1994, as part of a Sun Ra memmorial package offered by Blast First in a special limited edition of 500, BFFP V101.

The personnel (Walter Miller is not known to have worked with Ra between 1967 and 1978; Herby Griffin is otherwise known only from rehearsal photos taken by Val Wilmer at the Sun Studios in 1966 and reproduced in Omniverse Sun Ra by Geerken and Hefele) leads us to believe that the film was shot in 1966. Niblock says 1966 to 1968.

From The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra 2nd ed. 

The Sound of Eye posted the main feature here.

Download the bonus material here (mp4 202mb).

The Other Worlds of Sun Ra on Into The Music

The Other Worlds of Sun Ra on Into The Music radio show originally broadcast September 5, 2010

From Archive.org:

In the history of post-war jazz in the US, perhaps the strangest and most mysterious figure is Sun Ra. An outstanding pianist, composer, arranger and big band leader, he was also a science fiction philosopher, Afro Futurist poet and self-declared citizen of Saturn.

Sun Ra's life project mixed a fascination with outer space with his African roots and wildly expressive music, which continues to delight and inspire audiences almost two decades after he left the planet.

The Other Worlds of Sun Ra features writer and activist Amiri Baraka, who collaborated with Ra in the New York underground of the 1960s. Sun Ra's archivist and one-time drummer, Michael D. Anderson, gives an insider's perspective of playing with Ra and his Arkestra. There are readings from Sun Ra's pamphlets and poems as well as the voice of the man himself. And of course -- plenty of Sun Ra's weird, beautiful and other-worldly music.       

Producers: Brent Clough and John Jacobs

Narrator: Aku Kadogo

Readers: Calvin Welch and Aku Kadogo

Music Details

Download link 320k (left-click play; right-click save)

REPOST: WWOZ.ORaG Cosmo Jazz Radio

Update!  Link to the show Playlist is now included.  

THANKS to I-) for the hint!

My new favorite radio station broadcast 5 hours of Sun Ra last night.  Though they don't have the catalogue nor the sublime knowledge of WKCR's Charles Blass, the show was a real treat.  I captured their stream with Audacity and spent some time this morning trying to break up the show into some manageable parts.  The stream was at 128k as is the file.  Enjoy!

WWOZ

Cosmo Jazz Radio
5 hour broadcast (download)

Playlist

WWOZ.ORaG Cosmo Jazz Radio

My new favorite radio station broadcast 5 hours of Sun Ra last night.  Though they don't have the catalogue nor the sublime knowledge of WKCR's Charles Blass, the show was a real treat.  I captured their stream with Audacity and spent some time this morning trying to break up the show into some manageable parts.  The stream was at 128k as is the file.  Enjoy!

WWOZ:  h!!p://www.wwoz.org/blog/102782

Cosmo Jazz Radio
5 hour broadcast