An evocative array of ephemera and objects relating to the career of one of America's most far-out jazzmen, Sun Ra, is part of an exhibit under way at the Durham Art Guild. The show, titled "Pathways to Unknown Worlds: Sun Ra, El Saturn and Chicago's Afro-Futurist Underground 1954-1968," bridges the sonic world of Sun Ra and his "Arkestra" with the visual manifestations that embodied Ra's unique philosophy.
Born Herman Poole Blount in Birmingham, Ala., in 1914, Sun Ra was a musical prodigy who was playing professionally in his early teens. Eventually re-christening himself Le Sony'r Ra, he developed his own complex cosmology, a blend of his interests in arcane and esoteric thought systems, such as Rosicrucianism, numerology, Freemasonry and the Kabbalah, combined with a heightened awareness of the Black Power movement and crowned by his insistence that he came from the planet Saturn.
The presentation at the Durham Art Guild includes an array of sketches for album covers by various artists, including Ra himself. Sketches by Claude Dangerfield and others favor space-themed subjects, including rocket ships speeding by the moon and lightning bolts flashing through the sky. A framed blue ticket stub announces "The Antonites present an Evening of Outer Space Music and Dancing featuring Sun Ra and his Outer Space Arkestra."
Sun Ra's own record cover design of an unfurling spiral finds its way from sketch to printing plate to record cover for "Other Planes of There," printed in black ink on a silver ground and released by his own El Saturn label. Artist Aye painted black light murals in spaces communally inhabited by the Arkestra in which motifs of ancient Egypt, such as the eye of Horus and the ankh mingle with psychedelic themes, documented here by a series of small color photographs of the period.
Dominating the center of the gallery is a short documentary film, "Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise," by Robert Mugge, set to the music of Sun Ra and his Arkestra in full-tilt cacophonic mode. Ra, it should be remembered, was a pioneer of electronic music and synthesized keyboards. In voice-over, Sun Ra proclaims that he is here to show people "otherness than what they are and what they have known," and that he is "playing pure sounds to vibrate the world into synchronization."
The film captures the Arkestra in its costumed gear -- in performance, the Arkestra donned "uniforms" simultaneously evocative of ancient Egypt and outer space, replete with elaborate headdresses. The Arkestra was a floating group of 20 to 30 musicians, resembling a big band in type, but also incorporating acrobatic dancers and fire-eaters who would parade into a club alongside the musicians, creating a memorable spectacle.
The exhibition features a few hand-made musical instruments, such as a lyrelike "Space Harp," painted purple, and a cymbal incised with mystic symbols.
Ra's open notebooks are encased in vitrines, one turned to a handwritten page proclaiming:
All in the realm of Death
Is nothing but Peace
Its inhabitants have all received
Equal rights because they have received equal rites
That is, the services (personal and complete without prejudice) of Death.
Through the device of claiming Saturn as his birthplace, Ra could profoundly challenge Earth's status quo and fight, albeit idiosyncratically, for equal rights.
Besides packing a philosophical message, Ra educated his audiences, always insisting on the lineage of classic jazz to his own often difficult, hermetic compositions and free-jazz improvisations.
As Kenneth Ellzey has written, "Ra broke through all genres, his music featuring massed percussion and often having more in common with composers such as [Edgard] Varèse, [Iannis] Xenakis or [Karlheinz] Stockhausen. But he could swing as well, playing the music of his heroes Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson. When he tackled Rachmaninoff (on his album "Aurora Borealis"), it would send shivers down your spine."
"Pathways" is a tasty repository of ideas, a rewarding introduction to Sun Ra's insistent, highly personal journey and a reminder of his continuing trail-blazing influence a decade and a half after his death.
