In celebration of Sun Ra’s 100th (earthly) anniversary, Afro Punk Festival presents "Afro Punk After Dark: The Beautiful Noise" at Brooklyn club Littlefield on Saturday, August 23. The tribute will feature The Beautiful Noise including King Britt, Damon Bennett, Anthony Tidd and a few surprise guests.
Sun Ra’s cerebral style of free jazz-infused world music, dubbed “Afrofuturism,” continues to spawn muso-philosophical questions on this place we call the universe.
(The office definition of Afrofuturism, by author Ytasha Womack, states "Afrofuturism is a way of telling alternate stories of reality, through a black cultural lens.")
Sun Ra was a prolific composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher all to the tones of his own brand of cosmic theories. Space was his place, indeed.
Led by multi-disciplinary DJ King Britt, the celebration down in Gowanus aims to re-contextualize Ra’s music in the same spirit and freedom in which they were created.
Wax Poetics contributing editor Andrew “Monk-One” Mason will kick off the evening by playing original vinyl-encoded examples of astral jazz.
Even better? Attendees who show proof they went to Afropunk during the day will receive discounted admission to event.
Have a listen below, then, to Ra performing "Sound Of Joy" at the Under the Sky Festival from July 30, 1988 at Yomiuri-Land Theatre East in Tokyo.
