WAYNE KRAMER REPORT 3.22.05

From time to time I am blessed with what I call peak moments. These are times when the truth of a particular instant registers with me clearly. When there is no confusion or ambiguity whatsoever. When all distractions are stripped away and the moment merges with the feeling. They are the times when I know it just doesn’t get any better than it is right now.

Last month at London’s Royal Festival Hall I had one of those peak moments.

The music and socio/spiritual/educational/political philosophies of Sun Ra have been a pillar of my thinking for almost four decades. I first was introduced to them in the late sixties by my friend John Sinclair. I had moved out of my mother’s house on Detroit’s northwest side and into an apartment down in the Cass Corridor around Wayne State University. Sinclair and I had become friends and he became a mentor for me. He was older, better educated and possessed a worldview that intrigued me. Sinclair had a way of seeing things that made a lot more sense to me than what I was able to put together myself up to that point. We discussed everything from God to the blues and all points in-between. He was particularly well informed about music and musicians and the problems that go along with this kind of life. These were subjects that I was drawn to in an almost obsessive way.

We talked about what music means to people and what role it plays in our lives. We discussed how the music we gravitate to informs our lives and reflects them at the same time. I questioned what the connection between the musician and the listener is and how does it work beyond just the surface level. We talked a great deal and he turned me on to some music that changed everything for me. Some of this music was Sun Ra’s.

The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra on ESP Disc was the record that opened the door to a whole new life for me. It’s peculiar that sometimes folks tell me a piece of music I made changed their life. I find it hard to believe, but this is exactly what happened to me. Time and time again.

Sun Ra was just what I was looking for. I have always been drawn to the next thing. The current thing only holds my interest for a short while. No matter what it is, could be trains or cooking shows. I think I’m a little better at staying in one place and enjoying the moment today but I am still inexplicably drawn to moving ahead.

Sun Ra was–and still is–way ahead of me. He has been another mentor of mine. He was also way ahead of most of the leading edge musicians of the day. These were not slackers either. In the day of Monk, Mingus and Coltrane, saxophonist John Gilmore chose Sun Ra’s band as the most “stretched-out” of the lot. Gilmore had offers to join the others’ bands and chose the Arkestra. This tells me, in effect, that Sun Ra was able to advance the entire context of western music into a larger more resonate expression. Personally, I place him in the pantheon of most important artists with da Vinci, Bach, Mozart, Picasso or Pollack.

I took dozens of acid trips with Sun Ra’s music. I suppose one could say this undermines my credibility, but I don’t care. I got deep, deep into what he and his fellows were doing. I heard what it was he was telling me. Us. That music can be limitless, that its expression is only limited by our own limited human thoughts and if we can get beyond self, then we can find a land “Where the sun shines eternally.” That the message is to make it your message.

Sun Ra died in May of 1993 and a few of the center core players like the aforementioned tenor giant Gilmore and baritone saxophonist Pat Patrick, vocalist and dancer June Tyson have also died, but the band has carried on bravely under the able leadership of alto saxophonist Marshall Allen. Who, at 70, is blowing like a teenager from Mars, which I suspect he actually is.

When we first started DKT-MC5 it was with the understanding that the band was an experiment and would have to be considered a “work-in-progress” concept. Any old ideas of what our band was or how our band might operate would have to be jettisoned in favor of a more flexible and adventurous platform to work on‚Ķif it was going to work at all. I actually wasn’t sure it could. It had been a long time since I played with Dennis Thompson and Michael Davis and a lot of water had passed under those bridges.

After the pleasant discovery that we could not only improve our ability to play together and even tour together quite successfully, I reached the conclusion: So what? Why are we doing this? To carry the message of the music of the MC5 to a new generation of fans? Sure, but the answer is ultimately bigger than that. It’s because we need to continue to do something creative. Doing things that push the boundaries of what a band is, and what the art of performing music might become given a little encouragement, DKT/MC5 is just that kind of vehicle.

The concert at Royal Festival Hall was the realization of just such a plan. It doesn’t come without a great deal of work by a lot of people. Once the idea had been hatched we were able to tie together some unfulfilled commitments from last summer’s 66-city world tour.

I assembled a new line-up of the band featuring our old friend Handsome Dick Manitoba, guitar hero Gilby Clarke and the incomparable Lisa Kekaula. We set up a short European tour to bracket the event. We had five shows across Spain and France to get ourselves together for the London concert. Being in a band is not a destination, it’s a process. The process takes a few runs-through to tune itself up for the performances. Five was a good number and by the time we hit London everyone felt pretty secure in their roles.

We were joined in London by my friend David Thomas. David and I put in some extra time in the dressing room working out the timing on the countdown section of “Starship.” It is a complicated bit of vocalizing, and it took some effort to master.

The sound checks went down fine and we were all running around from task to task like chickens with their heads cut off. There was a considerable press commitment for the day and I kept up my end by sitting for two filmings and a handful of print interviews. One film, incidentally, is a new documentary film by Don Letts on Sun Ra.

The Arkestra’s performance was a joy to my ears. The wonderful cacophony of multiple horns, bass, drums and electric guitar were fresh and sparkling. The Arkesta looked great too. The Sun Ra Arkestra doesn’t often get credit for their contribution to the art of performance in dance and theater, which is considerable. I’m not sure who influenced whom, but back in the 60s when we were first playing with them in Detroit they wore afro/dashiki types of clothes. We had just begun to experiment with sequins and gold lame and other metallic types of materials, so I am going out on a limb here to say that Sun Ra saw these bright flashy clothes on these crazy boys in Detroit and incorporated them into his presentation. Did we get it from him? Did he get it from us? Doesn’t matter. We all got it and tonight the Arkestra was shimmering and shining forth beautifully. The stage lighting really helped amplify the bright reds and blues of the sequins and bangles. The dancing was superb. Free and joyous.

We took the stage at our appointed time and played a focused set of straight down the center rock material from the MC5 book. We were closing in on the moment. As it approached, I started to feel a real excitement about what we were about to get into. All through the planning stages I kept calm and only allowed myself to be excited in an intellectual sense, as in, this a good idea among many other good ideas. But now it was real. It was palatable. I could feel it. I was giddy.

I said a few words to the audience about what Sun Ra meant to me and the band. I introduced Marshall Allen and the fellows. I introduced David Thomas and Dr. Charles Moore and we began playing “Starship.” I had a simple outline for the performance which was to start easy and free. Start small and build gradually into the actual song portion of the performance and then let’s just see what happens. What happened exceeded my wildest expectations. Each little sound I made with my guitar in the intro, someone in the Arkestra answered. I got a great exchange going with trumpeter Michael Ray.

When Dennis would lay down a rhythmic feel on drums, everybody joined in with him. The music was totally free and totally controlled at the same time. This is the lesson of freedom, its not free. For each freedom there is a responsibility, in music and in everything else. We explored theme after theme in a glorious and joyous fashion. I only wish we could have stayed with one rhythmic feel longer to see what’s over the next hill. Across the next valley. Over in the next galaxy.

I realized that, because of the stage volume, David Thomas couldn’t discern the timing on the opening chords, so I jumped in to sing the opening lines with him. “Starship‚ĶStarship take me‚Ķ” All Aboard.

The Arkestra joined in with a spontaneous counterpoint to the rock chord changes and we rounded the corner to the countdown section. The thing that makes this part so difficult is that it is absolutely set and cannot be changed. It comes at an accelerated velocity and has a lot of rhythmical words to get out at a really fast clip.

“Ten. For the gravity. Checkpoint! Nine for polarity. Checkpoint! ‚Ķ”

Made it! We’re leaving the power of earth’s gravitational pull and heading into zero G.

“Out there amongst the planets‚Ķ”

Here the Arkestra were in familiar territory. After all, space is their place. We cruised the galaxies and generally enjoyed the view for a while.

Earlier I had discussed with Marshall the possibilities of us all singing, “We travel the spaceways‚Ķ” or, “If you find Earth boring, it’s the same old same thing, come on sign up with Outerspaceways Incorporated” together, and he was all for it.

We all sang together and I never felt so at home as I did in that moment. I have been singing variations of this tune for 30 years and right there in that moment it just all seemed to fit perfectly. Right there in that instant, it was all there. From way back then with John Sinclair in the kitchen of his apartment on Warren Ave. in Detroit to right now here in London England, in an instant, time was suspended. The peak moment.

We all danced outrageous party dances from space ballet to the funky chicken. It was a full body/spirit/mind celebration. Just then, David Thomas began his Tuvian cum Venusian throat singing. We soared and roared and clicked and clacked, binked and bonked our way through the night finally ending in a drone of feedback that segued into a funky New Orleans second line march from the stage for all the voyagers. Naturally, these moments do not last.

You can’t hold on to joy. You just grab a kiss as it passes by.

I‚Äôm pretty sure the crowd went nuts but I was overwhelmed myself at the fun we just had. It wasn’t the music or the lights or the crowd, it was the experience of being alive. The backstage scene was pandemonium with good friends old and new showing up to check in.

Blissful, we left London at four in the morning en route to Italy and the remainder of the tour.

Oh yea, we filmed and recorded it too. Can’t wait to see what we got along with the hundreds of hours of footage from last year’s tour. Who knows? More will be revealed.

But the best news is we will do it again soon.

“We came from nowhere here. Why can‚Äôt we go somewhere there?” — Sun Ra

I couldn’t agree more.

Best, w

COURTESY JOSHUA BABCOCK!