“In tomorrow’s world, men will not need artificial instruments such as jets and space ships. In the world of tomorrow, the new man will ‘think’ the place he wants to go, then his mind will take him there.” — Sun Ra, Jazz in Silhouette album notes (1959)
Sun Ra’s birthday, also known as his “Arrival Day,” is May 22nd. Ra was born in Birmingham, Alabama, but was from the planet Saturn. Last year, we were fortunate to attend the inaugural Sun Ra Day festival in Birmingham hosted by Earth Libraries. The festival, now in it’s second year, is approaching and will be held, again, in Birmingham, AL, from May 21-22, culminating with a performance by the Sun Ra Arkestra at Saturn–the excellent club and bar.
With all the Sun Ra festivities going on, we decided to select an early Ra release for our Record of the Month Club. Members will be getting a copy of Jazz in Silhouette pressed on 180-gram, blue vinyl and including a bonus track. Subscribers will also get a new bumper sticker we’ve designed just for the occasion.
Jazz in Silhouette is the quintessential record of Sun Ra’s Chicago period during the late 1950s. Recorded in 1958 and issued in 1959, the album—Ra’s third—offers a coda for the bandleader’s bebop/hard-bop periods, as his interstellar traveler persona began to vividly evolve at the close of the decade. Sunny’s compositions here reflect his talent for writing memorable works in the jazz idiom, even as arrangements like “Ancient Aiethopia” point to new directions in amalgamated primitive-futurism. After Ra moved to New York in 1961, he began to explore musical terrain away from jazz conventions. Yet Jazz in Silhouette is resplendent with adventure.
We’ve also made a limited Sun Ra-themed t-shirt + sticker bundle. A percentage of the sales of the bundle will go to the Sun Ra Day organizers to help fund the festival. You can snag a shirt/sticker bundle RIGHT HERE.
You can read more about Sun Ra Day here, and snag tickets here. This is an amazing event and we highly recommend attending if you can.
