........Sun Ra's remaining earthly representatives set satellites and heads spinning Monday night at Cafe Oto in down town Dalston where disciples gathered for some pure sun pleasure.........Sun-worship whilst He resides back on Saturn is at fever pitch, especially for those like myself who didn't see him whilst he was here......but Ra is here, there, everywhere, as his fans will testify.............the flame is kept burning brightly by the oldest surviving member, Marshall Allen, who joined in 1958...he's now 90, unbelievably and still sparkles with energy, punching the air, raising hands to drop them directing the Arkestra, singing and spitting typically fiery solos through his alto horn..............assembled in space gear, glittering in spotlights, members cramped so tight the trombonist almost decapitates players in front when he slides out a solo....in the time-space continuum tradition standards such as Sometimes I'm Happy and Stars Fell On Alabama were played but the gates to the magic city were really thrown open when the band hit a swinging stride, some going walkabout through the crowd..........................fine rearrangements of Space Is The Place and the kind of sonic salvo we craved during passages of Rocket Number Nine and for a time it felt like all there were truly being blasted way off into the universe..............
...................................thinking about Sun Ra a few days later, his truly profound sonic universe like no other in music.......the breadth, diversity of Sun Ra, poet, philosopher, player, writer, arranger of cosmo-mystical savage beauty, radicalism, tradition, Afro-infinite musical genius..............I just felt grateful to be an explorer of what feels like an endless musical world................
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