Antique Blacks

VINYL FORMAT. Although Sun Ra wouldn't have called Earth home, there were a couple of cities that proved to have considerable significance on him and his music, and Philadelphia was one of the places that he really felt in his element. With the Arkestra HQ based at Marshall Allen's family home, a period of stability followed that resulted in some of Sun Ra's most well-loved albums like Lanquidity, Sleeping Beauty, and On Jupiter. Philly lit Sun Ra's creative spark from 1968 right up to the early '90s. On Antique Blacks, Sun Ra blends elements of free jazz, off-key synth explorations, and experimental theatre into an other-worldly concoction that doesn't crop up anywhere else in the Arkestra's massive discography. Antique Blacks takes its starting point from the bible and slavery, and throws these issues into the contemporary political frame hurtling up-to-date with and late '60s Civil Rights. At this time the Arkestra typically consisted of twenty to thirty musicians, dancers, singers, and fire-eaters, combined with elaborate lighting effects and playing sets for two to three hours nonstop.