Sun Ra Takes The A Train (Montreux 1976)

The 1976 European tour of Sun Ra and his Arkestra with concerts in Italy, France, Switzerland and the Netherlands did a lot for the popularity of that band from outer space among european jazz fans.  One of the reasons for this besides the impressive show that Sun Ra and band delivered, was that several star owned European TV stations filmed the concerts (or at least parts thereof).

Here is some footage from the concert in Pescara, Italy (uploaded by youtube user chieflittlenuts):

Youtube user chieflittlenuts alo uploaded the first part of the surviving footage from the Montreux concert on July 9th

As I think there can never be enough good quality Sun Ra on youtube, I have uploaded the rest of the known footage from the Montreux concert: Twelve minutes of Sun Ra and his Arkestra playing Billy Strayhorn’s “Take The A Train”. It starts with a long solo introduction by Ra and also offers a classic John Gilmore solo and lots of drumming by Clifford Jarvis.

Enjoy!

The Sun Ra Arkestra in Poschiavo 2012

I spent Wednesday and Thursday of last week with my friend Hubi and Hubi’s friend Dario in Poschiavo in the Graubünden part of Switzerland where the Sun Ra Arkestra under the leadership of  Marshall Allen supplied the on stage music for two theatrical plays at the Uncool Festival. I shot some video there – but in fact a lot of people did. So there is no need for me editing all this stuff now. Instead I have embedded some nice clips that I found on the youtube channel of local newspaper Giornale il Bernina. Here are some excerpts from the Wednesday evening performance of the play Oedipus: