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AND HIS fvf TH SCIENCEARKESTRAriD
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If you find earth hor- ing protracted struggle lo make himself understood. From filling
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Just the Mime old same thing - the piano chair ami slipping in a few ' ‘modern arrangements
with the Fletcher Henderson swing orchestra in the forties, to
. If you find earth hor-ing - gigging around Chicago as a piano soloist and occasional
Just the same old same thing
(' nine on. sign up - bandleader, lo putting together his first experimental hand in
( inter S / taceways Incorporated! the early early fifties, through more than thirty record albums
in the past twenty years, lo his present stature poised on the
brink of popular exposure and enthusiastic acclaim, Sun Ra
I he stage is set with vvliat seems like thousands of strange
instruments weird saxophones and reeds, an infinity of created an evergrowing body of work which is all of a piece
various drums, space implements which appear capable of with itself and perfectly reflective of Ra\ cosmic concerns.
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making any sound ever heard or dreamed of - and it s even
Because I do have something to offer people other than
stranger when the musicians walk out to take their places. music, and they have to face it. because / have to face it.
I here s almost twenty of them, often more, to begin with, and
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they re dressed out in costumes and contrivances which might you see. They ’ re going lo have lo really consider it. And
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possibly IK * comical if they didn t look so at home wrapped up that goes for preachers too. I feel sorry for them. I don t
in all that sparkling cloth, gliding through the winking light to know of anybody I feel more sorry for. unless it ’ s the
pick up their instruments for the beginning of the trip. president of the United States or the pe<»plc who are ruling.
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At the center of the spectacle, even though he may IK * off a Because they got a joh oil their hands. Because they re
little lo one side, rising over his piano or whatever other magic changing ages one age moves into another one. and the
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organ he may have pieced together for the occasion, and at the rulers they re in trouble. You ve got not only a change of
center of everyone s attention at least , his physical self draped age. hut a change of laws the law that has been the law of
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in the brightest of the sparkle-cloth, the master orchcslrator Ibis planet lias moved over to no longer be the law. Now
and space-captain SUN RA turns slowly from side to side, a when that happens, and since this planet tor thousands of
years has been up under the law of death and destruction.
massive sun-disk glinting rays of light in every direction as he
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completes his spaced-out benediction and begins to gel down it s moving over into something else which I choose to call
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to the business at hand - taking the |>eople who are fortunate MYTH, a MYTH-SCIENCE, because it s something that
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enough lo he present on an extended trip through their own people don t know anything about.
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many levels ot consciousness, and creating some of the most That s why I m using the name MYTH- SCIENCE
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beautiful music in the universe in the process. ARKESTRA, because I m interested in happiness for
people, which is just a myth, because they re not happy. I
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You come down to the point where you ' ve got to have a would say that the synonym for myth is happiness -
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better world. Now my contribution is in the music. In the because that s why they go to the show, to the movies, they
first place.I feel that people have got to know they got IK* sitting up there under these myths trying to get
lo know what happensas is. Now. they ve never really been themselves some happiness. And if the actors can indulge in
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happy on this planet because they didn t ever have anything myth, why can t the musicians?
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to he happy about. So then I show them in the music and
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give a feeling of happiness so they ll know when they re Back on stage the actors/musicians arc chanting in unison:
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happy and when they re sad... To some people it seems "Sun Ra and his hand - from outer spare - will entertain von
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like the music doesn ' t have anything to do with what I m now - Sun Ra and his hand - from outer space - will
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talking about, but it does. Because music is a language and entertain you now/ They are not joking or making cynical
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I m speaking things over in it. So in order to understand the fun of their audience - it s just the opposite , you can see in
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music people will have to know some of the thoughts I m their faces and hear in their voices and instruments the
thinking • • • undeniable need they feel to turn people on to what they ve
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come somehow to understand, and it is clear that they will do
Sun Ka has been thinking these thoughts for a great many anything they have to do to get their message across,whether
years now no one really knows how many, because Ra it means wearing outlandish space garb and dancing around
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won t admit to having ever been born ( “if you re born you ve chanting or whether it means applying their desire and energy
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got to die. and I just don t think that ' s fair ) - and his music to their instruments to put it straight to people s brains
has grown to galactic proportions during the course of his CONTINUED ON PAGE
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