On Saturday, October 1, 2022, ColaJazz Executive Director, Mark Rapp, had the honor of introducing the world-famous Sun Ra Arkestra at the 2022 Jam Room Music Festival. Below is what he had to say and a video to go along with it.
SUN RA INTRO . 10/1/2022 . JAM ROOM FESTIVAL (Columbia, SC)
My name is Mark Rapp, Founder and Executive Director of the 2021 Governor-award winning non-profit jazz organization, the ColaJazz Foundation and the voice to SC Public Radio’s “ColaJazz Presents…” which airs Sunday nights at 8pm.
Along with the Jam Room Festival, the ColaJazz Foundation aims to make Columbia a culturally-rich, exciting, and artistically innovative place to live. Together, we are upsetting the status quo, breaking down walls of conventionalism and bringing to our communities a deeper, richer, more invigorating experience in arts and music.
I invite you to visit both jamroommusicfestival.com and ColaJazz.com to learn more.
The Sun Ra discography is one of the largest in music history. Sun Ra recorded over 1,000 tracks and has taken more stylistic detours than just about any other jazz musician making him one of the most prolific recording artists of the 20th century.
The cultural, musical and spiritual significance of the Sun Ra Arkestra cannot be overstated. Since the mid-50’s, the Sun Ra Arkestra has been using their music as a way to uplift people all over the world.
The vibrations created by the band is a means to wake-up into your higher-self, to feel your brothers and sisters, to feel the planet, to feel the cosmos, to feel a state of being beyond our current consciousness.
Sun Ra and the Sun Ra Arkestra members dedicate their lives to coordinating the minds of people into an intelligent reach for a better world… an intelligent approach to “the living future.”
Sun Ra said, “When we loose feelings, then we are dead. Music is about feelings. Music is a plane of wisdom, because music is a universal language, it is a language of honor, it is a noble precept, a gift of the Airy Kingdom, music is air, a universal existence … common to all the living.”
Our invitation, we do invite you, to be part of their space world. These tone scientists speak of many great things. Fasten your seatbelt. We are about to depart this world. Please welcome the Sun Ra Arkestra!