Buy John Corbett's book
Extended Play. It's got (1) a great essay on afro-futurism centering on the work of Sun Ra, Lee Perry, and George Clinton (published a good five years before Eshun's book); (2) a nice general overview chapter on Ra, incorporating some interviews with him; (3) an extended interview transcription with Alton Abraham (the guy who basically ran Saturn while the Arkestra was based in Chicago); and (4) it nicely winds up with a shorter interview transcription with Ra.
If it seems like I'm pimping this guy, well perhaps I am but only because I never see anyone else recommending him, and he's an amazing writer; better than a large number of the mommapluckers who get name-dropped on ILM repeatedly (I can't fucking WAIT for his new one, supposedly due next year). Plus he's the guy behind the two recent Ra reissues on Atavistic. Bottom line - if you're researching Ra, you WANT this book.
Then of course, you'll want to scare up a copy of Dr. Robert Campbell's Ra discography. It goes great lengths towards clearing up and making sense of the lengthy and convoluted discography, one not helped by the obscurantist tendencies of Saturn; the hand-made covers, the multiple matrix numbers, the multiple packaging and repackaging of the same material: this book goes quite a distance toward clearing up some of the mystery.
― Broheems (diamond), Sunday, 7 December 2003 05:25 (twenty years ago) link
three years pass...
There's a nice article on Design Observer about Sun Ra and Saturn records, related to two new books.
I particularly love this:
Abraham and Ra had ambitious plans for Saturn. In a notebook, a sketch shows them envisioning a Saturn Records skyrise complex, with separate floors dedicated to Bible and space research, Sun Ra’s records going platinum and a Saturn limousine chauffeuring them around.
There was also a special on Jazz Library on BBC R3 last friday, I'm assuming it's not on the site anymore, made my mum listen over dinner
If anyone's taken a look at these books it'd be nice to hear what they're like. The books are:
Pathways to Unknown Worlds: Sun Ra, El Saturn and Chicago's Afro-Futurist Underground, 1954-68
The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets.
― Major Alfonso, Friday, 22 June 2007 22:43 (sixteen years ago) link
I've got the poetry (Immeasurable Equation) one put out by Alton Abraham's son, which is great - made me curious about the broadsheets one but I have yet to by it.
― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 22 June 2007 22:52 (sixteen years ago) link
fourteen years pass...