Record Release and Sun Ra Celebration
Saturday, March 22 | 2:00pm | FREE
Corbett vs. Dempsey is pleased to announce the release of Music is a Message From Space, a new compilation of music under the inspiration of Sun Ra. To celebrate the new LP, the gallery presents a special afternoon launch event with drummer William "Bugs" Cochran, the last of the Chicago musicians to have worked with Ra during his tenure here in the 1950s, including a stint at strip clubs in Calumet City. Cochran appeared on Ra's third album, Jazz In Silhouette, as well as Sun Song and Sound Sun Pleasure, and he is the drummer featured in the version of the Arkestra that appears in Ed Bland's 1959 film The Cry of Jazz. Still active in his early 90s, having worked with everyone from Gene Ammons to Erwin Helfer, Cochran will play drum solos, a super rarity. Vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz, who has graced Music is a Message From Space with a brilliant interpretation of two Sun Ra compositions, will perform solo as well, and we anticipate a world debut duet for drums and vibes! Bugs and Jason will also sit down for a Ra-related conversation with John Corbett.
Music is a Message From Space is a bracing nine-track LP featuring new and archival recordings all orbiting around the intergalactic soundscape introduced by Sun Ra. Ra's own a capella track "I Don't Believe in Love," home recorded around the time that Bugs began working with him in Chicago during the 1950s, kicks things off, followed by two incredible solo improvisations by French guitarist Raymond "Moncho" Boni, one acoustic and one electric. The first side wraps up with Jason Adasiewicz's riveting unaccompanied vibraphone workout on Ra's "Lanquidity" and "Where Pathways Meet," both from the LP Lanquidity. With a completely different take on Lanquidity, Side Two begins with four wild remixes by legendary Cologne techno pioneer Wolfgang Voigt, using layered samples from the record. Ken Vandermark's band Spaceways Inc., with bassist Nate McBride and drummer Hamid Drake continue, with a medley of two Ra tunes ("We Travel the Spaceways" and "Space is the Place"), in collaboration with the Italian band Zu. And where it started in disbelief, love-skepticism, the program concludes with Joe McPhee's emphatic embrace on "Cosmic Love," a classic tenor/synth sound-on-sound recording from 1970. In its breadth, Music is a Message From Space revels in the omnidirectionality of Ra's influence. The vinyl is strictly limited to 500 copies and features cover art by Emil Schult, who designed the classic Kraftwerk LPs. The record's inner sleeve reproduces the artworks in Nothing Is: Sun Ra and Other's Covers, a show curated by John Corbett and Albert Oehlen for JUBG in Cologne and CvsD in Chicago, serving as a full-color commemoration of that recent exhibition.
Come join Bugs Cochran and Jason Adasiewicz in celebration of Sun Ra's legacy and this hot new collection!