When Sun Comes Out

I was introduced to the otherworldly sounds of Sun Ra around the age of 10. Long long long time ago. I did not think of it then, but would later wonder how my Belizean father had encountered such seemingly random Americana. Anyway, the first record he played was Atlantis. Before the first track, "Mu" finished I was hooked.

Fast forward nearly 10 years. Playing ball at JuCo. Digging for records is all but dead to me. I sit in a smokey, cramped basement as we listen to the former Zev Love X and Otis Jackson Jr's debut opus, Madvillainy. As the disc plays through and the room gets foggier a little more than halfway through the album I here a familiar voice. "OhShit! He sampled Sun Ra!' The rest of the room looked at me with the, 'Yea he did... Umm who is Sun Ra?' I said some about jazz and Space is the Place but I was not there anymore. I was Kabbalando, connecting with the source. The incurable itch was coming back.

Sun Ra has a musical legacy that spanning roughly forty-odd years. An exhibition at UPenn's Institute of Contemporary Art, titled: Pathways to Unknown Worlds: Sun Ra, El Saturn & Chicago's Afro-Futurist Underground, 1954-1968, highlights Ra's philosophies, paintings and unpublished works of poetry. Displayed works cover a span of 14 years during which Ra and The Arkestra were based and deeply connected to the Afro-Futurist movement in Chicago. The Institute will also be screening the film Spaceways, by Edward English.

The exhibit runs thru 2 August.

Space is the Place, scene 1: