SUN RA ARKESTRA

The Red Box, Dublin

Sun Ra, full moon, and out come the freaks, golden of garment and glittery of fez, getting stuck straight into a full-bore blast of cosmic bebop. If the Arkestra seem like a cabal of Masonic disciples whose messiah has left them for less corporeal climes, then they’re looking well on it. Sounding good too – all freestyle saxophony cacophony, with a side order of handclaps, call and response routines and lunar doo-wop, kinda like a free jazz Parliament on acid.

That said, they didn’t always go as far as you wanted. Tonight’s best moments were the ones that seemed to actually hurt, hardcore episodes where you could trace the direct line from the Arkestra through the MC5 to Black Flag to Primal Scream. Even better was when our maestro at the front of house started applying dub

trickery to the alto sax. At such times, one was

reminded of Norman Mailer’s Cannibals And Christians, where the writer recalled going to see Sun Ra in Chicago with a raging case of the flu, and coming home

cured.

There were no such miracles performed tonight, perhaps because the players seemed to be toning down for the kids, playing it straight when they could’ve and should’ve corkscrewed, perning in a jazz gyre. Compared to the dissonant magic of the opening tunes, one mid-set slow blues sounded almost plain, and by the end of the second session my companions were beginning to drop names like Butch Moore and the Royal Showband, as the soloists went walkabout in the crowd.

It was good, it was weird, but it wasn’t transcendental.