It’s been over thirty years since Sun Ra’s passing, but the music and memory of the inimitable jazz composer and bandleader is still alive and well. Sun Ra lives on in countless ways; his Arkestra still performs to this day, helmed by Philadelphia saxophonist Marshall Allen, and countless artists still draw from his body of work (including Kronos Quartet, who recently organized a tribute album dedicated to the musician.)
Another tribute comes in the form of SUN RA: Door of the Cosmos, a new film from pop-culture documentarian Drew DiNicola. You might know him as the man behind the 2013 Big Star documentary, Nothing Can Hurt Me, which won him critical acclaim, Now, he’s crowdfunding for a film that he claims will be “the first historically complete portrait of the origin, impact and living legacy of Sun Ra and his Arkestra.” (Previous cinematic portraits of Sun Ra include Robert Mugge’s 1980 doc Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise, as well as the science fiction cult classic Space Is the Place from 1974.)
The film follows Sun Ra and his bandmates through their sixty-year history, featuring both archival footage of Sun Ra and new interviews with Marshall Allen and other collaborators. The film’s soundtrack will be released through abstract hip-hop label Stones Throw (home of MF DOOM, Madlib, and countless others). You can support the production of this documentary here.