The Man from Outer Space: A Discussion with Sun Ra
Interview by Robert Franza
This interview was done early 1989 and aired on WUSB-FM around that time (Sun Ra and his Arkestra performed at the Staller Center at the end of February that year). The transcript below was published in the Stony Brook Press, (Vol. 10 No. 9). It is reproduced here with permission.
Robert Franza: The Sun Ra Arkestra has been together as a performing and recording unit for nearly 35 years. Many of the key players in the band have been with the Arkestra since its inception. Very few bandleaders have been able to keep units of such high quality intact for such a long period oftime. One thinks of Ellington and Basie. How have you managed to maintain the Arkestra as the vital presence it is?
Sun Ra: Actually, leading a large band is an impossible job and I would have given up some time ago but I'm under the jurisdiction of other forces which want to help the planet and they keep certain musicians with me. I'm here on the planet, you might say, for a mission That means that I have to be careful what musicians I use. I always say it's not my Arkestra, it belongs to some other force which wants certain things, to reach people. And, therefore, if someone is in the band who' s gonna get in my way, even ten years from today, the force will see to it that they will not be with me. The force will send things to them that they really want like dope or sex or religion or politics. And because they're not really sincere they'll fall for it and then they're no longer in my entourage. So, therefore, my music is pure because the people with me are with me because they are supposed to be. It'ss no whether they want to be. They are supposed to be with me.
RF: When did you first realize that other forces had chosen you for a mission on earth? Was this in the 1950s in Chicago when you formed the Arkestra?
SR: Well, it came earlier, really, when I was three years old, that I had to do something. I was up under the guidance of other forces. My family didn't know anything about it and my friends didn't but I knew that I had companionship. And then when I went to Chicago, that's when I had these outer space experiences and went to the other planets. That's when I organized what I called a space trio. Then it branched out and kept moving to four, five and six players, just like that.
RF: You've said before "I'm in contact with something that possibly no one in human form has been in contact with. It's not God, it's not Satan it's something else." Are you referring to this "something else" when you speak of other forces?
SR: Yes, that's true. It's possibly the same thing that the ancient Egyptians called the Nameless One. They had a temple to the Nameless One. The ancient Egyptians had a civilization for 5000 years without a break. No other nation has ever had that. They also gave the world the alphabet and philosophy-- all kinds of things that came from there. I'm sure it's the same force. When I saw Star Wars, I felt when they talked about forces they most certainly were correct.
RF: If that force is among us, does the average human feel that force and know that force or do they need a medium such as your music to come into contact with it?
SR: Well most people feel the negative side because they are negative. They deny things and, so, because of their minds, they get the negative side. They themselves repel the force. I don't have a negative side toward the force. I have a negative side toward the world because the world is self destruct [sic]. I have my shield up against that. It's totally wrong but people are self destruct. No one has to kill them. They just, like a time bomb, they go off. They don't know things and they're not trying to find out things except for money and sex and dope and religion and politics and all those things. And they are blind to something so splendid there's no word to describe it. They' re blind to that but they have a chance to reach out and touch it through a master. They can't approach it without a master, someone who has mastered himself and who has the discipline to help them. The world is in such a bad condition that if they don't find what you call a redeemer, every man, woman and child on this planet will be eliminated. It's at that point now. That's because they have never listened to prophets or listened to God. They don't have anyone to listen to. Well, they're just like automobiles without a driver.
RF: Do you fulfill the role of the master through your music?
SR: I'm a channel yes. I'm not a minister, I'm not a philosopher, I'm not a politician, I'm in another category. I am a musician, but I'm another type of musician. I'm talking other things. Music is a language, you see, a universal language. I use music as a medium to talk to people. But, I'm not in the commercial plane so that means I'm not on TV like preachers are, like the politicians are, like the philosophers are. Everybody has a chance to present themselves to the public. Prize fighters, baseball players, basketball players. Everyone except me and my kind...
RF: Why has the force propelled you into the great jazz tradition? Why have you become a master of jazz as opposed to other forms of music?
SR: I've got other forms of music Jazz is there because it's a world music other nations recognize it. But I have other forms of music that I haven't been able to project because it would take a lot of money to do it. It would take a lot of instruments. I've got pieces for a symphony orchestra which would be possibly twice as large as what they have today. I would tell them how to play the music with certain phrasings that they don't have now, because my music is talking, about other things. Today's symphonic music is sponsored by the upper structures of society. Bach and Beethoven, all of them, they had to write something to please the upper structure, those with money and power. If they didn't do that they were in trouble. In a sense they weren't free to create what they might have really felt, although they did great things. They were under pressure. Well, I have men in my band that aren't under pressure. I've got things that we've been rehearsing for 30 years, composition after composition. They're not on record and they've never been played for the public. I don't have the money to do them properly. If I was in Sweden or some other country where the government takes care of the musicians and the artists things would be different. But here in the US they don't. A lot of musicians have to be cooks and waiters and different things. But you can't do that without it interfering with your music. A baseball player doesn't have to go and get another job. Mike Tyson doesn't have to get another job, he can devote himself to what he's doing. Musicians in America can't do that. There's no independence for them. America is not doing anything for creative artists like myself. We do things on a shoestring and we play occasionally for the people but people can turn on their TV and see football and gambling and pornography and preachers and politicians every night. My kind is not exposed to the public. It's worse than a tragedy. On the other hand, the BBC wants to expose what I'm saying. I'm working on a project for broadcast in the United Kingdom. Here I am an American and here you got a foreign country getting ready to open up the airwaves for me. A prophet is not without honor except in his own country among his own people. People have set that up as a standard, not to recognize a prophet in his own country. That's why I play in Europe all the time, more than I play here. Not too many people in America know about me, but all of Europe knows about me. I got a surprise call from Turkey the other day. Now, Turkey is sort of a closed circuit I haven't heard of any musicians going there. Turkey called me and they want me to play there. It might be better if I just moved to Europe and the nations that appreciate the artistic value of what I'm doing. Canada wants me to come up there. All these other nations seem to appreciate what I'm doing and they want me to play the furthest out things. They want to hear the wild, crazy Sun Ra stuff. They don't call it avant-garde, they say it's beyond that Europe appreciates my compositions. In America they say it's too far out. I'm very puzzled, slightly upset, you might say. For the last five years I've had to play Fletcher Henderson and Ellington standards in the US.
RF: Does it please you to be playing as part of SUNY at Stony Brook's Black History Month Celebration?
SR: I'm playing dark history. It's beyond black. I'm dealing with the dark things of the cosmos. The dark things are the unknown things. I'm dealing with the dark spirit of all nations, the part of them they know nothing about. What I'm dealing with is so vast and great that it can't be called the truth. It's above the truth. I'm dealing with the potential of people. I'm dealing with what they should be and what I see in them that isn't there but should be there. I see people as they really are from a pure point of view. And seeing that I can't shut my eyes to it. Now, this sickness and this death and all these things that happen here on earth are not necessary. It's totally out of harmony, coordination precision and discipline. People are not made to die and to go through this It's such a tragedy that man endures in killing his brother and his own kind, putting him in jail and insane asylums, letting him lay out in the street. It's reached the stage where slot of people who never thought of it before are beginning to feel they could leave this planet and go to another planet I've been talking about that all along, you see. I've been talking about pioneering outer space, things like that. I'm talking about what I choose to call an omniverse. It's so bit it's endless and it's got all kinds of worlds out there, all kinds of mysteries. This little planet is like a grain of sand in the omniverse. And I'm telling people they can be part of and in a sense, are citizens of the omniverse, That's true.
RF: In your performances, you often have dancers, and perhaps some film images; it's more than just a musical event, it's a multimedia event that appeals and talks to all the senses...
SR: But recently I began to feel that maybe I wouldn't be able to do what I want to do and need to do with American musicians, who are imprisoned behind these bars; music's got these bars and measures you know. They tend to stay behind the bars and measures written on these papers; they are prisoners. I'm not dealing with that concept, I'm dealing with something else called freedom. It's like the sun and the stars in the sky, who are following a schedule. I have to follow that schedule whether I've got one musician or no musicians; I have to do what I have to do. I would like to do it in front of as many musicians as possible.
Recently, I have felt the need to reach out to the other influences in the world; South America, Asia, Africa, etc.. We had these Brazillian dancers join us not too long ago, and now they're with the band as if they belonged. They brought their own tradition and culture to the Arkestra, and now the rhythms of the Arkestra's music are telling them to do something they've never done before; that's the way it is.
RF: I guess your music makes a strong demand on your musicians, who are chosen to play with the Arkestra, since they need to shut out all those other distractions in life in order to play the music.
SR: It's more demanding than being a priest; there is no freedom. A world is in danger, this planet is in great danger! You gotta have somebody who can do things. Ministers and priests have done the best they can, but they are blocked by their standard of righteousness and their standard of "truth" The folks I'm dealing with don't care about the "truth" they don't care anything about righteousness; they are only interested in results They want people to rise out of the immature states they are in, and to leave the self-destruct part of themselves behind. They feel it must be done or else humanity can be considered an experiment that failed.
RF: Sun Ra, you are certainly one of the century's great creators, and in terms of jazz, you have been an innovator that has brought the music forward consistently throughout your career and...
SR: But you know, it reaches beyond jazz as I've said before; you've got to have foundations. I went to Birmingham, Alabama, I never went down there before, and I played in a place that was a hillbilly, country- western, "redneck" place. It was the only place (in Alabama) that wanted me to play. Other places didn't ask for me, but this place did. So I told my band that we weren't playing for white people tonight, we were playing for white folk, and folks got folk songs; they have, in addition, basic culture. They have folk songs. But the people don't have no songs, the folks got the songs!! And the folks can appreciate what I'm doing better than the people, who do not have any songs whatsoever, I told them that. It was standing room only, on a Tuesday night, and these people shouted my name for 15 minutes. I went outside, and they surrounded me and said, "Sun Ra, you are surrounded by love in Alabama".
RF: Some of my favorite Sun Ra recordings are the ones that you made for your own label [El Saturn], in the 50s, and I was wondering, out of your long recording career, how you feel about the recordings as a document of the band.
SR: When I realized that the commercial [record] companies weren't going to put me out there, I did it myself, so that the world would have at least a trace of something that's beautiful and coordinated, and that really would make them feel that there is such a thing as happiness, and make them feel that there are forces beyond this planet, who taught me and wanted me to present this to them. And I've been successful in reaching these people.
RF: Do you have favorite recordings of the band?
SR: Well there's one that's coming out, on Mute Records, of "Light On a Satellite" which is on other records too. But the way I'm playing the piano is a different story; it's totally different. I would say, in a sense, that it's my favorite right now.
RF: Mute is a label that does a lot of other things like punk and industrial rock. It's music that's going to reach a younger audience.
SR: Well that's what the TV people [BBC] said they're interested in reaching a younger audience with something that they didn't know about.
They said that they're searching for people, in America, who they feel are older and have achieved something and are still achieving things despite obstacles and neglect; they said that the Younger people need to see that.
RF: Do you have an opinion about Rap music which is currently speaking to young people in this country and many other countries?
SR: In a write up, in a New Jersey paper, I said that teenagers are facing this generation gap that leaves them without anything to hold onto from older people. In the black community, they don't have anything, staying in the projects and all that; but they need something to let the world know that they still love and they're still different so they have rep as their culture. Without that, they wouldn't have anything to tell the world: "I'm still here."
RF: What if there was a sudden change of heart on the part of those ugly powers that run the country and what if they wanted to send a special space shuttle mission with the Arkestra on board no weapons, no plutonium, no nothing, but to bring you up to space with the Arkestra to play. Would that be attractive to you?
SR: Well of course it would! Since I've been there before it would be like going home. This is not my home. This planet, to me, is like a railroad station; people are here today and gone tomorrow. It's not really home to anybody, it wasn't made to be home to anybody, it's like a big university that people sit in to learn how to be punished if they so choose. There are too many jails on this planet, too many destructive forces, but I can stop all that if maybe some government would help me... like Turkey.
This interview was done early 1989 and aired on WUSB-FM around that time (Sun Ra and his Arkestra performed at the Staller Center at the end of February that year). The transcript below was published in the Stony Brook Press, (Vol. 10 No. 9). It is reproduced here with permission.
Robert Franza: The Sun Ra Arkestra has been together as a performing and recording unit for nearly 35 years. Many of the key players in the band have been with the Arkestra since its inception. Very few bandleaders have been able to keep units of such high quality intact for such a long period oftime. One thinks of Ellington and Basie. How have you managed to maintain the Arkestra as the vital presence it is?
Sun Ra: Actually, leading a large band is an impossible job and I would have given up some time ago but I'm under the jurisdiction of other forces which want to help the planet and they keep certain musicians with me. I'm here on the planet, you might say, for a mission That means that I have to be careful what musicians I use. I always say it's not my Arkestra, it belongs to some other force which wants certain things, to reach people. And, therefore, if someone is in the band who' s gonna get in my way, even ten years from today, the force will see to it that they will not be with me. The force will send things to them that they really want like dope or sex or religion or politics. And because they're not really sincere they'll fall for it and then they're no longer in my entourage. So, therefore, my music is pure because the people with me are with me because they are supposed to be. It'ss no whether they want to be. They are supposed to be with me.
RF: When did you first realize that other forces had chosen you for a mission on earth? Was this in the 1950s in Chicago when you formed the Arkestra?
SR: Well, it came earlier, really, when I was three years old, that I had to do something. I was up under the guidance of other forces. My family didn't know anything about it and my friends didn't but I knew that I had companionship. And then when I went to Chicago, that's when I had these outer space experiences and went to the other planets. That's when I organized what I called a space trio. Then it branched out and kept moving to four, five and six players, just like that.
RF: You've said before "I'm in contact with something that possibly no one in human form has been in contact with. It's not God, it's not Satan it's something else." Are you referring to this "something else" when you speak of other forces?
SR: Yes, that's true. It's possibly the same thing that the ancient Egyptians called the Nameless One. They had a temple to the Nameless One. The ancient Egyptians had a civilization for 5000 years without a break. No other nation has ever had that. They also gave the world the alphabet and philosophy-- all kinds of things that came from there. I'm sure it's the same force. When I saw Star Wars, I felt when they talked about forces they most certainly were correct.
RF: If that force is among us, does the average human feel that force and know that force or do they need a medium such as your music to come into contact with it?
SR: Well most people feel the negative side because they are negative. They deny things and, so, because of their minds, they get the negative side. They themselves repel the force. I don't have a negative side toward the force. I have a negative side toward the world because the world is self destruct [sic]. I have my shield up against that. It's totally wrong but people are self destruct. No one has to kill them. They just, like a time bomb, they go off. They don't know things and they're not trying to find out things except for money and sex and dope and religion and politics and all those things. And they are blind to something so splendid there's no word to describe it. They' re blind to that but they have a chance to reach out and touch it through a master. They can't approach it without a master, someone who has mastered himself and who has the discipline to help them. The world is in such a bad condition that if they don't find what you call a redeemer, every man, woman and child on this planet will be eliminated. It's at that point now. That's because they have never listened to prophets or listened to God. They don't have anyone to listen to. Well, they're just like automobiles without a driver.
RF: Do you fulfill the role of the master through your music?
SR: I'm a channel yes. I'm not a minister, I'm not a philosopher, I'm not a politician, I'm in another category. I am a musician, but I'm another type of musician. I'm talking other things. Music is a language, you see, a universal language. I use music as a medium to talk to people. But, I'm not in the commercial plane so that means I'm not on TV like preachers are, like the politicians are, like the philosophers are. Everybody has a chance to present themselves to the public. Prize fighters, baseball players, basketball players. Everyone except me and my kind...
RF: Why has the force propelled you into the great jazz tradition? Why have you become a master of jazz as opposed to other forms of music?
SR: I've got other forms of music Jazz is there because it's a world music other nations recognize it. But I have other forms of music that I haven't been able to project because it would take a lot of money to do it. It would take a lot of instruments. I've got pieces for a symphony orchestra which would be possibly twice as large as what they have today. I would tell them how to play the music with certain phrasings that they don't have now, because my music is talking, about other things. Today's symphonic music is sponsored by the upper structures of society. Bach and Beethoven, all of them, they had to write something to please the upper structure, those with money and power. If they didn't do that they were in trouble. In a sense they weren't free to create what they might have really felt, although they did great things. They were under pressure. Well, I have men in my band that aren't under pressure. I've got things that we've been rehearsing for 30 years, composition after composition. They're not on record and they've never been played for the public. I don't have the money to do them properly. If I was in Sweden or some other country where the government takes care of the musicians and the artists things would be different. But here in the US they don't. A lot of musicians have to be cooks and waiters and different things. But you can't do that without it interfering with your music. A baseball player doesn't have to go and get another job. Mike Tyson doesn't have to get another job, he can devote himself to what he's doing. Musicians in America can't do that. There's no independence for them. America is not doing anything for creative artists like myself. We do things on a shoestring and we play occasionally for the people but people can turn on their TV and see football and gambling and pornography and preachers and politicians every night. My kind is not exposed to the public. It's worse than a tragedy. On the other hand, the BBC wants to expose what I'm saying. I'm working on a project for broadcast in the United Kingdom. Here I am an American and here you got a foreign country getting ready to open up the airwaves for me. A prophet is not without honor except in his own country among his own people. People have set that up as a standard, not to recognize a prophet in his own country. That's why I play in Europe all the time, more than I play here. Not too many people in America know about me, but all of Europe knows about me. I got a surprise call from Turkey the other day. Now, Turkey is sort of a closed circuit I haven't heard of any musicians going there. Turkey called me and they want me to play there. It might be better if I just moved to Europe and the nations that appreciate the artistic value of what I'm doing. Canada wants me to come up there. All these other nations seem to appreciate what I'm doing and they want me to play the furthest out things. They want to hear the wild, crazy Sun Ra stuff. They don't call it avant-garde, they say it's beyond that Europe appreciates my compositions. In America they say it's too far out. I'm very puzzled, slightly upset, you might say. For the last five years I've had to play Fletcher Henderson and Ellington standards in the US.
RF: Does it please you to be playing as part of SUNY at Stony Brook's Black History Month Celebration?
SR: I'm playing dark history. It's beyond black. I'm dealing with the dark things of the cosmos. The dark things are the unknown things. I'm dealing with the dark spirit of all nations, the part of them they know nothing about. What I'm dealing with is so vast and great that it can't be called the truth. It's above the truth. I'm dealing with the potential of people. I'm dealing with what they should be and what I see in them that isn't there but should be there. I see people as they really are from a pure point of view. And seeing that I can't shut my eyes to it. Now, this sickness and this death and all these things that happen here on earth are not necessary. It's totally out of harmony, coordination precision and discipline. People are not made to die and to go through this It's such a tragedy that man endures in killing his brother and his own kind, putting him in jail and insane asylums, letting him lay out in the street. It's reached the stage where slot of people who never thought of it before are beginning to feel they could leave this planet and go to another planet I've been talking about that all along, you see. I've been talking about pioneering outer space, things like that. I'm talking about what I choose to call an omniverse. It's so bit it's endless and it's got all kinds of worlds out there, all kinds of mysteries. This little planet is like a grain of sand in the omniverse. And I'm telling people they can be part of and in a sense, are citizens of the omniverse, That's true.
RF: In your performances, you often have dancers, and perhaps some film images; it's more than just a musical event, it's a multimedia event that appeals and talks to all the senses...
SR: But recently I began to feel that maybe I wouldn't be able to do what I want to do and need to do with American musicians, who are imprisoned behind these bars; music's got these bars and measures you know. They tend to stay behind the bars and measures written on these papers; they are prisoners. I'm not dealing with that concept, I'm dealing with something else called freedom. It's like the sun and the stars in the sky, who are following a schedule. I have to follow that schedule whether I've got one musician or no musicians; I have to do what I have to do. I would like to do it in front of as many musicians as possible.
Recently, I have felt the need to reach out to the other influences in the world; South America, Asia, Africa, etc.. We had these Brazillian dancers join us not too long ago, and now they're with the band as if they belonged. They brought their own tradition and culture to the Arkestra, and now the rhythms of the Arkestra's music are telling them to do something they've never done before; that's the way it is.
RF: I guess your music makes a strong demand on your musicians, who are chosen to play with the Arkestra, since they need to shut out all those other distractions in life in order to play the music.
SR: It's more demanding than being a priest; there is no freedom. A world is in danger, this planet is in great danger! You gotta have somebody who can do things. Ministers and priests have done the best they can, but they are blocked by their standard of righteousness and their standard of "truth" The folks I'm dealing with don't care about the "truth" they don't care anything about righteousness; they are only interested in results They want people to rise out of the immature states they are in, and to leave the self-destruct part of themselves behind. They feel it must be done or else humanity can be considered an experiment that failed.
RF: Sun Ra, you are certainly one of the century's great creators, and in terms of jazz, you have been an innovator that has brought the music forward consistently throughout your career and...
SR: But you know, it reaches beyond jazz as I've said before; you've got to have foundations. I went to Birmingham, Alabama, I never went down there before, and I played in a place that was a hillbilly, country- western, "redneck" place. It was the only place (in Alabama) that wanted me to play. Other places didn't ask for me, but this place did. So I told my band that we weren't playing for white people tonight, we were playing for white folk, and folks got folk songs; they have, in addition, basic culture. They have folk songs. But the people don't have no songs, the folks got the songs!! And the folks can appreciate what I'm doing better than the people, who do not have any songs whatsoever, I told them that. It was standing room only, on a Tuesday night, and these people shouted my name for 15 minutes. I went outside, and they surrounded me and said, "Sun Ra, you are surrounded by love in Alabama".
RF: Some of my favorite Sun Ra recordings are the ones that you made for your own label [El Saturn], in the 50s, and I was wondering, out of your long recording career, how you feel about the recordings as a document of the band.
SR: When I realized that the commercial [record] companies weren't going to put me out there, I did it myself, so that the world would have at least a trace of something that's beautiful and coordinated, and that really would make them feel that there is such a thing as happiness, and make them feel that there are forces beyond this planet, who taught me and wanted me to present this to them. And I've been successful in reaching these people.
RF: Do you have favorite recordings of the band?
SR: Well there's one that's coming out, on Mute Records, of "Light On a Satellite" which is on other records too. But the way I'm playing the piano is a different story; it's totally different. I would say, in a sense, that it's my favorite right now.
RF: Mute is a label that does a lot of other things like punk and industrial rock. It's music that's going to reach a younger audience.
SR: Well that's what the TV people [BBC] said they're interested in reaching a younger audience with something that they didn't know about.
They said that they're searching for people, in America, who they feel are older and have achieved something and are still achieving things despite obstacles and neglect; they said that the Younger people need to see that.
RF: Do you have an opinion about Rap music which is currently speaking to young people in this country and many other countries?
SR: In a write up, in a New Jersey paper, I said that teenagers are facing this generation gap that leaves them without anything to hold onto from older people. In the black community, they don't have anything, staying in the projects and all that; but they need something to let the world know that they still love and they're still different so they have rep as their culture. Without that, they wouldn't have anything to tell the world: "I'm still here."
RF: What if there was a sudden change of heart on the part of those ugly powers that run the country and what if they wanted to send a special space shuttle mission with the Arkestra on board no weapons, no plutonium, no nothing, but to bring you up to space with the Arkestra to play. Would that be attractive to you?
SR: Well of course it would! Since I've been there before it would be like going home. This is not my home. This planet, to me, is like a railroad station; people are here today and gone tomorrow. It's not really home to anybody, it wasn't made to be home to anybody, it's like a big university that people sit in to learn how to be punished if they so choose. There are too many jails on this planet, too many destructive forces, but I can stop all that if maybe some government would help me... like Turkey.