Without a doubt the highlight of ZXZW 2008 (yes, before we were even called Incubate. That long ago.) was Sun Ra Arkestra, who did up to six shows that week.
Sun Ra was one of the main innovators in jazz. The Arkestra is his future dream and his ancient body. It never was as popular as jazz’s best-known big bands, but it did have a steady following and was highly regarded in jazz circles. It appeared on “Saturday Night Live”, played a Central Park concert with Sonic Youth and was named best big band in Down Beat magazine’s critics poll five times. Sun Ra influenced the whole contemporary music scene and was a true independent mind.

Now, while we were digging through our archive, we found the recording of the Tuesday show in Paradox. It’s such a great show that we couldn’t keep it to ourselves. So here it is. The complete show. One of the six and the only one we could find. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

We all still remember the stunning performances of Sun Ra Arkestra at ZXZW in 2008 and it’s a pleasure to announce the return of Sun Ra legend Marshall Allen in the Paradox on March 16 2011.

After the deaths of Sun Ra in 1993 and John Gilmore in 1995, saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist Marshall Allen took over the lead of the Sun Ra Arkestra. Allen, who just passed the age of 86, is still in the picture, especially after cooperating with electronic/indie rock artist Caribou last year on the live album Caribou Vibration Ensemble featuring Marshall Allen. On this tour, Allen got together an impressive lineup of artists including Belgian drummer Eric Thielemans and James Harrar. Besides this touring lineup, Allen invites local guitar heroes to play with his band as well which in this case happens to be Tilburg’s own Jasper Stadhouders (played at ZXZW 2008 with The Black Napkins )

Besides the performance we can expect a huge visual part as well, arranged by James Harrar who restored and reassembled rare 60s and 70s footage of the Sun Ra Arkestra.

Under the name of Cinema Soloriens & The Cosmo-Drama ft. Marshall Allen, the ensemble will play in Paradox (where the Sun Ra Arkestra at the ZXZW festival in 2008 played five sets!) on March 16! More information (in Dutch) and ticket sales here. Expect a ticket contest very soon!

Jazz drummer Steve Reid has died in New York at the age of 66.

Steve Reid (January 29, 1944 – April 13, 2010) was an American jazz drummer who played with a wide range of artists including Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, James Brown, Fela Kuti and Sun Ra, and as a session drummer for Motown. He was named JAZZIZs “Percussionist of the Year” in 1993 and 1995.
Reid’s close friend, DJ Gilles Peterson, broke the news of his death on Twitter today, writing: “Devastated by the news that my friend drummer Steve Reid passed away last night in New York – a true inspiration who will be greatly missed.” (via)

On this cool blog you can find several very interesting jazz downloads, and also the most famous movie of Sun Ra: Space is the Place.

A short summary of Space is the Place:
A jazz innovator for decades, Sun Ra created a sound that could easily have come from his home planet–Saturn. The legend around Sun Ra is bizarre and complex, and it’s one element in John Coney’s insane 1974 film SPACE IS THE PLACE. Conceived as a vehicle for Sun Ra and his music, the film blends 1950s sci-fi, ’70s Blaxploitation, and Ingmar Bergman’s THE SEVENTH SEAL in an intense, provocative mix.

Check it out.

Did a bunch of high box jumps onto the stage and risers, wall handstand push ups and stuff for a bit.

Went and ate at the artist meal hall and then went and saw THE SUN RA ARKESTRA.
Holy shit, I cried during their first song. Some of these guys have been with the band for 50 years. I never, ever thought I would see these people play music and tonight I went and saw them for the first time. The thing is, they’re playing one block away from our hotel FOR THE NEXT FIVE NIGHTS IN A ROW, two sets each night covering a decade of music each night. Tonight was big band standards like Ellington and such.

Doormouse wrote on his ZXZW festival experience at his blog.

John Corbett arrived yesterday with a real Sun Ra treasure. He’s now working at the public library. We’ll open the exhibit Sunday 24th of August at 14.00.

This Sunday, the 24th,  we’ll open the Sun Ra exhibition Tapestries from an Asteroid: Arkestra Art & Design 1956-1975. Curator John Corbett will be there. Staplerfahrer will remix the Ra. And we’ll treat you on some free drinks and a Raket ice cream. Be there, Public Library at 14.00.

Mark Dery is a cultural critic. Time magazine called him one of “the smartest people we know.” (Praise so staggeringly over-the-top that even the Smartest Kid in the World would collapse under the strain of trying to live up to it!) Bruce Sterling wrote, “He may be the best cultural critic alive.” Dery writes about media, the visual landscape, fringe trends, and unpopular culture. He is the author of The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink (1999) and Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the End of the Century (1996). He edited Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyberculture (1994), the anthology that inaugurated cyberstudies as an academic field and kick-started the academic interest in techno-feminism and black technoculture (through Dery’s trailblazing essay “Black to the Future,” in which he coined the term “Afrofuturism”). His 1993 essay “Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing, and Sniping in the Empire of the Signs” popularized the term “culture jamming” (which you may know from Negativland and Adbusters) and helped launch the movement. Widely republished on the Web, “Culture Jamming” remains the definitive theorization of this subcultural phenomenon. He teaches media criticism and literary journalism in the Department of Journalism at New York University.

In a keynote speech Dery will likely examine the science-fictional (i.e., AfroFuturist) and techno-bricoleur aspects of the work of Sun Ra, setting them within the context of African-American culture’s relationship to technoculture and sci-fi mythology.

Reaction from Brad Markus.

Phill Niblock would like to visit our festival and even play a set :))

This is really cool news and we’re really honoured!

For the fans: this is a great site full of Sun Ra pictures.

this is pretty cool!

You can find the excellent blaxplatation free jazz cult movie Space Is The Place by Sun Ra at Youtube. Please check it, cause you’ve never seen something like this before.

Here are the latest additions:

Tapage
http://www.myspace.com/odakim

Ebola
http://www.myspace.com/ebolawrongmusic

Koonda Holaa (with Iggy and The Stooges member Steve MacKay)
http://www.myspace.com/koondaholaakamilsky

Religious Knives
http://www.myspace.com/religi0usknives

Gala Drop
http://www.myspace.com/galadrop

The full line-up ’till now:
Pelican, Sun Ra, Paint It Black, Watain, Torche, FFF, Guapo, Trash Talk, Ebola, Lakes, Usurper, LFO Demon, Pulling Teeth, Glorior Belli, Schlammpeitziger, Pisstank, Pre, Z’ev, Electric Kettle, Ambassador 21, Enablers, Manatees, Religious Knives, Computer Truck, Bunkur, Ladyscraper, Munch Munch, Eva Braun, Starving Weirdos, Hey Colossus, DJ Floorclearer, Chris Moss Acid, Gastón Arévalo, Agents Of Abhorrence, Talibam!, The Pharmacy, Kid Kishore, Tep, Night Wounds, Tigrova Mast, Aguynguerran, Judith Priest, Ladycop, Radio Eris, Kylie Minoise, Gewapend Beton, Tapage, Peeesseye, Potop, Arquettes, Tortuga, Fractional, Speedranch, Throats, Penguins Know Why, This Leo Sunrise, Incite, Nackt Insecten, Bram Stadhouders & Onno Govaert, James Kumo, Pilgrim Fathers, Neurosis Orchestra, Trouble vs. Glue, Throne Of Katharsis, Black Napkins, Koonda Holaa, F.M.G. , Jack Beauregard, Ars Dada, De Haan/Spruit, Punt Uit, Botborg, 7 That Spells, Gala Drop, Pu:ppkakkbaggrlull, Company Fuck, Håvard Volden/Daniel Meyer Grønvold duo, Total System Failure, Pessariüm, Nanostrike

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApScX0yvtyE&hl=en] A Joyful Noise is a Sun Ra documentary. You can find it at Youtube.

Wayne Kramer from MC5 not only covered Sun Ra, he also played with the Arkestra. This is what he says about it

`This kind of playing takes a great deal of concentration and my sore wrists reminded me of it later. Marshall was so gracious in granting me a few solo passages. For me, this was Heaven. Of course there were interludes of music that some might call “free music,” although this is a misnomer. When and how you play in this context is anything but free. This is about discipline, not freedom, which was one of the principles at the core of Sun Ra’s philosophy.´ read more

Sun Ra Arkestra
http://www.myspace.com/thesunraarkestra

Trash Talk
http://www.myspace.com/trashtalkfu

Paint It Black
http://www.myspace.com/paintitblack

Ars Dada
http://www.myspace.com/arsdada

Tortuga
http://www.myspace.com/tortugakings

Kid Kishore
http://www.myspace.com/kidkishore

Arquettes
http://www.myspace.com/arquettes

Aguynguerran
http://users.pandora.be/nguaroth/index.htm

Lakes
http://www.myspace.com/lakeslakeslakes

Enablers
http://www.myspace.com/enablers