Sunday, November 14, 2004

We travel the spaceways



A fantastic free event at the Festival Hall on the South Bank today where a couple of hundred young people from local schools took part in Space is the Place, a tribute to the music of intergalactic visionary Sun Ra. There was a brass section in Anubis headgear, blue robed drummers, and Egyptian and Cosmic Angel dancers, all co-ordinated by Kinetika Bloco. I loved the very notion of school kids being exposed to the cosmic utopian visions of Sun Ra; you're never too young to learn that 'If you find Earth boring / just the same old same thing/ come on and sign up with Outer Spaceways Incorporated'. I noticed Robert Wyatt was in the audience, but decided against making a prat of myself by saying 'wow, you're the incredible Robert Wyatt'.

There are more free events happening in the same venue this week as part of the London Jazz Festival, including some improvisation from Clearframe tomorrow - Monday 15 Nov. - at 5.30 pm, featuring Deptford's own Charles Hayward (see the 6 Nov. posting at this site for more about this outfit).

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