An Interview With Sun Ra

by Phil Schaap

Phil Schaap: My first question is more or less posed by Pat Patrick. He talked about a day, perhaps as long as thirtyseven years ago, when the Sun Ra Arkestra was a trio: Robert Barry on drums, Pat Patrick’s baritone saxophone, and your own keyboard work. Your orchestra and compositions have grown with the additions of the four voices with your chorale parts, your lyrics with the vocal group and then the meeting of these incredible individuals who are still the core members of the Arkestra: i.e. Marshall Allens, the John Gilmores. As you got new individuals and therefore new pieces, how did it change your writing the music you wanted to write?

Sun Ra: Well, I just write what I feel. I'm keeping up with the cosmos and with the future, the alter-future, all kinds of things, so I can put messages into music from all kinds of places. I’m in contact with a lot of different places and beings and I communicate with them and I can put down what they are saying or what they are going to say; it’s all over into something this cosmos psychic you might say.

Schaap: When you had a trio, did you want more pieces, did you want to write for a larger ensemble and do you continue to write for the small group within the band as you make music today?

Ra: Well, the world was never supposed to hear this music you see, it wasn't designed for that. It was really not to be part of the world. But that has gone in another direction because I felt that every innovator on this planet was never accepted, whether they were classical composers or otherwise. I did not want to go through that. I had something worthwhile. I did not want to fight to get people to listen to it. They needed me, I didn’t need them. So I went the way anybody else with wisdom would go: you just disconnect yourself from society and from everything and you develop yourself spiritually. That’s what I was doing; not in a righteous manner, but just advancing myself spiritually. Some people develop their minds. I developed my spirit and I went in another direction. Therefore I went places, I saw things, and I heard things that possibly no one on this planet had heard before and I recorded it because it was too much to write and music is the universal language. So I recorded it so that I remembered some of it when I played it back; because it is like in code, you see, and by me listening back to it, I can recall something that I may have forgotten about.

Schaap: When did you get into recording your own music and how did you do it?

Ra: Well, I was supervised by superior beings. They always fixed it up for me to do that, because I wasn't interested in it and they were, for some reason. Although they don't seem much interested in humanity’s surviving, they still wanted this music to be recorded. So I did it at their behest and not at mine.

Schaap: You know, the music has helped you travel to these places you speak of. Are there compositions or musical performances that stand out in your memory, as you've experienced it, where what you felt, the most essential Jazz quality, was expressed to the fullest limits? Is there a work that you might isolate or a record or a performance where what you felt inside, what you had been made to do, has happened?

Ra: Well, I have a lot of things. I have a piece called “A Quiet Place In The Universe,” which would really be nice for this planet to hear, because it would eliminate stress… to feel that somewhere is a quiet place in the universe. And that’s a nice song. It could really go into the classical repertoire. I have a lot of things that could fit right in, but I wasn't trying to seek recognition or anything like that. In a sense, I was trying to bypass this planet; it’s very difficult to be a part of it, so therefore I didn't want to be part of it. I felt that I’d win my greatest victory by not wanting to be a part of this planet. And judging by what's happening here, I was right.

Schaap: How do you evaluate yourself as a pianist; as a keyboard player?

Ra: Well, actually, I haven’t really expressed myself on piano the way that I can because, as I said, in the early days in Chicago, I was doing that and some pianists stole some stuff and have become millionaires, so then I decided to do the organ and electronic things. And the piano players were asleep to what I was doing, but now they're waking up because I get a lot of letters, and they want some piano records. The piano players were the last ones waking up.

Schaap: How do you think you’ve influenced piano players of today? Where are you hipping them?

Ra: Well, they're just beginning to listen. They were listening to everyone else but me, but they've begun to listen now.

Schaap: Well some forty years ago—in 1947—

Fletcher Henderson, one of the major pianists of all time, was enthusiastic about your piano playing.

Ra: That’s true. He was one of the few people that liked the way I was playing in his band. His band didn't like the way I was playing, but Fletcher did. I finally had to tell them that Fletcher plays piano, and he hired me, and if a pianist recognizes another they should just shut up. And so when I finally gave my notice, Fletcher didn't say anything, he didn't say he accepted it, and he didn't say he didn't. The next night the band played, I went, and they didn't have a piano player. He said if I didn't play, they just wouldn't have a piano player. He was up there directing and they [the band] realized he meant it, so they told me to come back on stage, so my notice was over. After that the band didn't bother me because they realized that Fletcher meant it… Well I'm glad he kept me, because he was a gentleman and he had a sense of humor. He would play “Humoresque” sometimes when I would get up on the piano, and he would play “Stealin’ Apples,” and I would play it exactly the way he had played it, and he just smiled.

Schaap: Tell me, did you really say on television, when they asked you whom you admired, did you really name Fletcher Henderson and the Devil?

Ra: I said Lucifer, because Lucifer is a musician. In fact, I'm sure I've learned quite a bit from him. He's a top musician. I keep moving forward, and when you do that in the human race, in mankind, you come up against superior beings, and they have to judge whether you are pure in heart. If you’re pure in heart, you don't have to worry about the Devil, you don't have to worry about Satan, you don't have to worry about Lucifer, you don't have to worry about God—if you are pure in heart. But if you’re not, then you’re in trouble.

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