In Memorium: Douglas P. Kalish
As a young man I was introduced to Sun Ra's music visually. Discount Records in the early, fabulous '60s was located on the ground floor of the Book Cadillac Hotel, at Michigan Ave. and Washington Blvd., in downtown Detroit. Each year Discount Records had an annual storewide Christmas sale. For a number of Christmas holidays I worked as a temporary employee at the main US Post Office at Michigan Ave. and Trumbull St., not far from Tiger Stadium. One afternoon, on my way to my post office gig, I stopped in Discount Records to get an idea of what I'd spend my Postal Service earnings on - I worked solely for the certain benefits of Discount Records' Christmas sale.
In the Jazz section of the store there was a very well-dressed, tweedy, horned-rimed man examining a Sun Ra vinyl recording with a purple jacket. Today my image of the holder of the Sun Ra disc comports with what I imagine the New Yorker's Whitney Balliet looked like - see his photograph on the vinyl Impulse recording of the concert that he produced featuring the greats Henry 'Red' Allen and Charles Ellsworth 'Pee Wee' Russell. I conjecture that the Sun Ra album I saw was either "Cosmic Tones For Mental Therapy" or "Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow" (circa 1961-1963). I should note that many of Ra's album covers are in purple - my favorite color too.
I don't recall when it was that I first heard Sun Ra's music. It was probably on Bud Spangler's fabulous program on Wayne State University's then great radio station WDET-FM. I may have seen Sun Ra's Space Arkestra at the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival; we were so far removed from the stage that we couldn't discern what or who was going on. A few years ago I did hear the Arkestra under the direction of Marshall Allen at Joel Peterson's National Bohemian venue. Sun Ra had already taken to the Space Ways by then; he died in 1993.
I had been thinking about Duke Ellington and his music recently and this led me to think about Sun Ra's music. And this time of year is a period when I think about times' past and people that I've known and music that I've listened to that has affected, and continues to affect, me. There is a direct connection between Sun Ra's world and Duke Ellington's world - the musical worlds of both men. If one knows something about Duke Ellington's music and his musical life, the 58 minute You Tube presentation of the BBC-4 production entitled "Brother From Another Planet" is a vivid account of what it means to be a creative musician in America. Ellington and Sun Ra worked at their craft - inventing music and leading their bands - all the time. The link to the BBC program is second item listed below. While this program is devoted to Sun Ra, one could (in essentials) substitute the professional lives of Duke Ellington or Count Basie. What the program shows is how much work it was to create Sun Ra's music and how devoted Sun Ra and his musicians were to the music. Our Detroit/Ann Arbor friend, John Sinclair - the poet and most everything else - is featured in the BBC program along with Amiri Baraka, Archie Shepp, and John Szwed, author of Space Is The Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra. The third link below concerns the Jackie McLean documentary, Jackie McLean on Mars. It is very interesting and connects with Sun Ra and the musician's life in America in many interesting and painful ways.
I sat down this afternoon to write a holiday piece on my favorite holiday music. Each year at this time I make recordings for my friends, one or two CDs, of music that fits my current holiday mood. To be up front I'll note that my favorite Christmas music consists of Charles Brown's "Merry Christmas Baby" - best Christmas song ever, Babs Gonzales', "Be-Bop Santa Claus", and everything included in Billie Holiday's recording Lady In Satin. The last item takes care of the new year too. The ultimate holiday film, taking care of Thanksgiving and everything else, is Woody Allen's Hanna and Her Sisters. The scene in the record store is precious showing the album covers of the great Cleveland and Detroit tenor saxophonists Ernie Krivida and Yusef Lateef.
After you've been spiritually awakened by the three items linked below, spend some time with Hanna and Her Sisters.
http://www.artsjournal.com/rifftides/2007/02/ave_whitney_balliett.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A74bjt0yGDc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ap1HJ8Cd4M
