Space Is the Place

As hard as it is to properly describe the late keyboardist and jazz experimentalist Sun Ra, it's easy to turn his story into a comic book. But this much is true: Born Herman Blount in Birmingham, Alabama, he was drawn to music as a child and graduated to playing in...

November 14, 2013

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As hard as it is to properly describe the late keyboardist and jazz experimentalist Sun Ra, it's easy to turn his story into a comic book. But this much is true: Born Herman Blount in Birmingham, Alabama, he was drawn to music as a child and graduated to playing in big bands as a young man before undergoing a life-changing, visionary experience that sent him on a more adventurous musical path that literally -- in his mind, at least -- came from outer space. By the time he officially changed his name to Le Sony'r Ra, donned Egyptian togs and formed his out-there free-jazz ensemble the Arkestra, Sun Ra would claim that he was from Saturn, spouting new-agey rhetoric while making wild music that could exhilarate as much as bewilder the public.

How do you wade through all of that to find the meat of his story? Tonight at 7 p.m., the Colorado Chautauqua's Creative Life Series will present “Sun Ra: Sounds for the Space Age,” a 100th-anniversary talk by Sun Ra enthusiast and University of Colorado professor Dr. Paul Youngquist that focuses especially on the artist's blast-off period, from 1949 to 1960. The lecture takes place in the Chautauqua Community House, 900 Baseline Road in Boulder; to learn more or to reserve tickets, $7 to $10, visit chautauqua.com or call 303-442-3282.
Wed., Nov. 20, 7 p.m., 2013

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