Cosmic Trips Around The Sun, To Saturn
“Ghosts are those memories that are too strong to be forgotten for good, echoing across the years and refusing to be obliterated by time.”― Caitlín R. Kiernan
It was a cosmic week of birthdays.
First, on May 19th 1969, fifty-five years ago, Skip Spence released what is probably one of the most beautifully beguiling records ever to grace a major label, Oar. Then, on May 22nd, 1914, 110 years ago (55 x 2, for those keeping score), Herman Poole Blount, who would go on a lifelong trip to Saturn under the name Sun Ra—was born in Birmingham, Alabama. And finally, yesterday, May 25, 1924, Marshall Allen, the sole surviving member Sun Ra’s original Arkestra—who still leads the band although only playing in and around his home in Philadelphia—turned 100. While the latter two birthdays hold a closer connection, all three celebrate the extra-terrestrial side of humanity…music and music makers that defy convention and the earthly coil to reach for something beyond, to offer a glimpse of new realities and voyaging explorations. They are celebrations of the far-reaching expansions of the artistic mind.
I was on a whirl-wind trip to New York this past week, where my nephew alerted me to a tribute to Sun Ra that was happening at Lincoln Center Jazz, on the night of his 110th birthday...at Dizzies, the club in the sky (apt destination to salute a space traveler). Given the uniqueness of the music of Sun Ra, I went with moderate expectations given the iffyness of tribute shows. But band leader and Impulse! Recording artist Sullivan Fortner, who wore a mirrored mask similar to that of the guardian in the Space is the Place film, wrangled together an incredible cast of characters for an evening of intergalactic journeying.
The band included former Sun Ra Arkestra member Alex Blake on bass, who played on the legendary My Brother The Wind, Part II as well as the interplanetary chaotic It's After The End Of The World - Live At The Donaueschingen And Berlin Festivals. His chops were peaked at Dizzies, scatting along with his fingers as they slalomed up and down the neck of his instrument, mentoring the other half of his rhythm section, the young, great drummer & Roy Haynes’ grandson Marcus Gilmore (no relation to John), who was all-smiles under his multi-colored bucket hat as he masterfully kept the chaos of the evening in framed lock step. Craig Harris, another Arkestra alumn (as well as playing with Cecil Taylor), played the part of conductor in true Arkestra style, yelling and hand-signaling each piece’s changes and player solo moments, taking the microphone to lead the singing for songs like Space is the Place and Interplanetary music. Another NY jazz stalwart, Frank Lacy, was rocking the French horn unlike anything I have ever seen, playing it with the gusto of Pharoah on tenor sax, while the beguiling Scott Robinson switched from sax to a pocket synthesizer, ever so slightly moving his fore finger and thumb, giving rise to electric reverberations that settled atop the rest of the music. And finally, the young, charismatic Maurice "Mobetta" Brown played his trumpet backwards, squeaking and squawking with head flips and a raised chin. When the band dove into Plutonian Nights, from the album The Nubians of Plutonia, they lock-stepped a vibe that was the closest thing to an Arkestra moment you are going to get without being deep inside the original Sun Ra Philadelphia lair. It was more than a tribute, it embodied the history and the mystery.
Near said lair in Philadelphia last night, was the final celebration of a week+ of celebrations around Marshall Allen’s 100th birthday. With still many members of the Arkestra having been hand-picked by Sun Ra before his death in 1993, Allen is the only one left in the band who played on the classic recordings like 1959’s Jazz In Silhouette (Marshall discusses his life trip here). Until just recently, Allen relentlessly toured with the band. Of the videos my nephew sent to me from last nights birthday party, the best features Allen surrounded by the band, bowing, meditating with his horn, blowing alien history and jazz evolutions, sounding ageless with centuries of musical knowledge coming out with each breath.
Talking to Eric Isaacson of the great Mississippi Records the other day, while we both fall on different sides of our love for various eras of Jazz, Sun Ra and his Arkestra created a body of work that is above any other. It is free jazz. It is noise. It embodies doo-wop and Egyptian sunsets and Atlantian underwater reflections. It is mythic, memorizing, bombastic, beautiful and improvisational. It has the capacity to beat back storm clouds (I have borne witness) and open up the heavens. It champions Universal (with a capital U) peace and equality for all. Sun Ra was such a unique individual that while he and the Arkestra were staying with Black Panther members in the 1960s, when Sun Ra was teaching at UC Berkeley (Go Bears!), he was eventually asked to leave. While both groups agreed around the general premise behind black power and freedom, The Panthers could not handle the space-aged Saturn voyaging demands of Ra—they just could not hang with the premise of equality being linked to star travel.
I made a mix to celebrate the 100th birthday of Allen and the 110th birthday of Sun Ra.
Lastly, to touch upon Skip Spence’s Oar…and we will talk about it more in the upcoming weeks: guitarist/singer/songwriter Skip Spence and the Moby Grape ruled the San Francisco Haight Ashbury days with their live shows featuring incredible harmonies and explosive performances. The band most-likely-to-break-through the flower power generation was ultimately sidelined by problematic managerial and label decisions (most notably releasing five singles from their debut album simultaneously, with their drummer Don Stevenson throwing the bird on their album cover). When making their second record, Skip’s Schizophrenia took over and he aggressively wielded an ax on his bandmates, chopping down guitarist Jerry Miller’s door, and coming after Stevenson. As bandmate Peter Lewis recalls:
They took him to The Tombs [a notorious prison in New York] and that's where he wrote Oar. When he got out of there, he cut that album in Nashville. And that was the end of his career.
Oar is a crazy, meandering record that Skip played all the instruments on. There are incredible, fully realized songs like the opener Little Hands and the dark, bluesy Weighted Down, while other tracks like Margaret-Tiger Rug and Grey/Afro, being deep meanderings from the complex and cloudy mind of a truly touched artist; it is a classic that stands alone. Later in life, when Skip was in bad physical health, my friend Bill Bentley came to me to ask if Birdman Records, my label, would release a compilation of covers of the songs from Oar, which we did. More Oar. The making of the record is a great story for another time, but when it was completed, Skip was on life support..and Bill went to the Santa Cruz hospital and played it for him.
To celebrate Oar and the life of Skip Spence (whose biography was recently released), live show producer Folk Yeah (Britt Govea), Howlin’ Rain’s Ethan Miller and myself are putting together a benefit show in San Francisco at the Chapel on June 15th called More More Oar. The event will raise money for Music Cares and feature a house band of Miller, Steve Shelley from Sonic Youth on drums, Steve Turner from Mudhoney and Andy Cabic from Vetiver on guitars and yes, Kash Killion from The Sun Ra Arkestra on cello (it all comes together). Jerry Miller and Don Stevenson from the Moby Grape will be there (with other Grapers possibly to be added) to sing some Skip & Grape songs with other guests such as Bill Orcutt, Meg Baird, Kelley Stoltz, Brogan Bentley, Jesse DeNatale, Leslie Medford (original recording artist for the More Again album), Paula Frazer and Inna Showwalter.
If you are around on June 15th, PLEASE PLEASE come and bring as many people as you can! The profits will go to a very good cause and it might just be the last time members of the Moby Grape are together in the city that launched them.
Rue Matthiessen Revisits Ireland, a Long Ago Summer and a Family’s Past
Peter Mattiessen wrote a novel that is on my list of greatest I have ever read, Shadow Country, exploring the crazy life story of Edgar Watson through three very different perspectives. It won the National Book Award for fiction. I tried to read Snow Leopard…a book I chose to read with my nephew (same one I went to the Sun Ra Tribute…he is such a great guy)…which won the National Book Award for Non-fiction (Matthiessen is the only author to have won both). I could not get through it (and I totally let my nephew down). The Snow Leopard tells of Matthiessen’s journey hiking in the Himalayas, an adventure that included deep philosophical ponderings that were embraced by a generation of readers. His story, told as he hikes, includes the fact that his wife had recently died and he had left his kids behind for the walkabout. I found myself deeply angry with Matthiessen for what I consider to be an abhorrent parent decision: leaving his mourning children without a parent, going on a dangerous trip, around the world, risking orphaning them. I could not travel along, page by page, as he pondered the universe; I kept getting more upset. Which makes this new book by his daughter Rue so interesting to me. What did his daughter think of him? The article includes telling quotes from Rue:
“Peter…didn’t deal with domestic things. They (Peter and Deborah, his wife) had a struggle over that.”
Though at times her childhood was difficult, (Rue) Matthiessen appreciated the way her parents brought her and her siblings into their lives.
“We were just little adults,” (Rue) Matthiessen said. “There was no such thing as childhood.”
The Great Escaper review: A fitting final film for two British acting legends
I have been very late to the party regarding the 2023 film The Great Escaper, a beautiful film which is also the swan song for Michael Caine and Glenda Jackson. Jackson died before the film was released, but not before allowing two career spanning interviews that are very much worth the watch (here and here). There is something about watching the last film from a Hollywood legendary elder…the lines they utter seem to carry higher multiple meanings, the expressions on their face telling so many last stories (I always think about Spencer Tracy’s deeply touching last soliloquy in Look Who’s Coming to Dinner, as he was dying of cancer in real life, and how Katharine Hepburn cried on screen, looking at the man she loved as he looked at her, both sighing, as fact and fiction blurred). The Great Escaper also showcases a wonderful acting job by John Standing, himself in the later years of a great career. A beautiful, poignantly told yarn.
Thank you Al Moss for this historic and deeply meaningful article (one of three) that the New Yorker published about the Duke in 1944.
Victor Hugo's relative vows to carry on his Guernsey legacy
Hugo was exiled from France because of his political views (and his powerful voice) and he went to Guernsey. I have recently gotten to know a lot about Guernsey, because I am currently reading his book Toilers of the Sea, which spends the first quarter of its 400+ pages giving a deep overview of everything about the Channel Islands. And now his great-great-grandson has returned to them, with some plans to help “the development of the new Victor Hugo Centre so young people could learn more about the writer and his social justice work.” Guernsey is on my bucket list of places I would like to check out…maybe someday
I miss going to ARSC conventions. My friends from Dust to Digital, Lance and April, both went and wrote a great article about it….
Possession
By: Leonard Bacon
I like unlettered mountains, all unknown
To poets, where no piping capriped
Repeats a borrowed song, while softly tread
The nymphs that love the dark stream or the stone.
I want an animism of my own.
What were those strange and lovely things that fled
As I glanced up? What that primeval dread
I felt in the spiritual waste alone?
Appear, take shape and substance. I evoke
Your presence out of the uncharméd rock
That no magician yet had skill to mock
With hackneyed spells. The spirit of the peak
Rosy with dusk possesses me. The oak
Quivers with a wild meaning. Speak to me—speak.
Happy Birthday Nadia Boulanger
Come see Nels Cline Scott Amendola and (fare thee well to) Phillip Greenlief at The Mitch in Palo Alto by Earthwise Thursday May 30, 2024 also significant birthday of somebody somewhere I’m guessing