Sun Ra

A film, music and aural presentation by Eric Isaacson of Mississippi Records, Portland, USA. Featuring archival film, images & stories spanning 1890 to the present day, illustrating Eric's own special history of underground music movements and bonafide individuals. The live footage performances are culled from rarely seen film shot during Alan Lomax's North American travels between 1978 to 1985 and Mississippi Record's own enormous library of folk blues, gospel, esoteric, international & punk music.

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Sun Ra was born on the planet Saturn some time ago. The best accounts agree that he emerged on Earth as Herman Blount, born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1914, although Sun Ra himself always denied that Blount was his surname. He returned to Saturn in 1993 after creating a stunningly variegated and beautiful assemblage of earthly and interplanetary music, most notably with his fervently loyal Arkestra. Sun Ra and his Arkestra were the subject of a few documentary films, notably Robert Mugge’s ‘A Joyful Noise’ (1980), which interspersed performances and rehearsals with Sun Ra’s commentary on various subjects ranging from today’s youth to his own place in the cosmos. This documentary reuses some of Mugge’s material and includes some additional interviews.

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Sun Ra, Archie Shepp and company in concert in Paris, 1984. Documents performances and rehearsals in Paris, France, 1984. It includes the compositions "Love in Outer Space," "Nuclear War," and "1984" by Sun Ra and the standards "Tea for Two" and "Blue Lou," as well as interviews with Sun Ra and Archie Shepp.

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Robert Mugge filmed jazz great Sun Ra on location in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. between 1978 and 1980. The resulting 60-minute film includes multiple public and private performances, poetry readings, a band rehearsal, interviews, and extensive improvisations. Transferred to HD from the original 16mm film and lovingly restored for the best possible viewing experience.

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A late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels. The show's comedy sketches, which parody contemporary culture and politics, are performed by a large and varying cast of repertory and newer cast members. Each episode is hosted by a celebrity guest, who usually delivers an opening monologue and performs in sketches with the cast, and features performances by a musical guest.

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Sun Ra and his Solar Myth Arkestra return to Earth after several years in space. Ra proclaims himself "the alter-destiny", meets with inner-city youths and battles with the devil himself to save the black race.

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A music documentary made with Sun Ra.

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Multi-faceted artist Phil Niblock captures a brief moment of an interstellar communication by the Arkestra in their prime. Black turns white in a so-called negative post-process, while Niblock's camera focuses on microscopic details of hands, bodies and instruments. A brilliant tribute to the Sun King by another brilliant supra-planetary sovereign. (Eye of Sound)

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This video captures innovative jazz composer, bandleader and pianist/synthesizer player Sun Ra's two live concert performances in East Berlin in 1986. Claiming that he was of the "Angel Race" and not from Earth but rather Saturn, the eccentric Sun Ra developed a complicated persona embracing cosmic philosophies and composing lyrical poetry that preached peace and condemned racism (which he experienced firsthand while touring with the Arkestra).

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The never-before-seen in its entirety, visual documentation proving this avant-garde collaboration of mythic proportions did indeed occur. Recorded at Sideshows by the Seashore along the Coney Island boardwalk on June 8th, 1986 as documented on VHS by John Polizzi under the commission of event producers Rick Russo and Bronwyn Rucker. It was long believed that Cage and Ra never performed together but as you’ll see,these two shared the stage the entire time. The VHS footage has been combined with the audio master (containing several silent sections and some mic issues that occurred during the production), which breathes new life into the tiny reels of tape. The silent passages illuminate new auras when presented with the previously unseen visual component, and now over thirty years since it was recorded, you can truly experience the full spectacle.

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