“Sun Ra” Series Continues on KKFI’s Acclaimed “Ark to Microchip”

Acclaimed KKFI 90.1 FM program “Ark to Microchip” airs a series of shows on the musician-artist Sun Ra. Tune in to hear a multi-media retrospective of Sun Ra’s life, music and universal impact.

• January 2 – New Ring Around Saturn: The Legacy of Sun Ra, part 1
  Jazz master Sun Ra’s musical/metaphysical journey from his origins in Ancient Egypt, to his childhood in depression‐era Birmingham, and Afro-spiritual quest with Fletcher Henderson in 1950s Chicago. Featuring Chuck Haddix and Patrick Neas.
• January 9 – New Ring Around Saturn: The Legacy of Sun Ra, part 2
  The life and times of Sun Ra from his experiments with new electronic keyboards in the 1950s to the stellar performances and recording sessions in 1960’s New York City. Featured commentary by Rhondda Francis and William Easton.
• January 16 – New Ring Around Saturn: The Legacy of Sun Ra, part 3
  June Tyson joins Sun Ra’s cosmo-journey for Arkestra performances at the Great Pyramid of Giza, and in New York City and Oakland, California. Featured commentary by jazz legend Arnold Young and video artist Ellen Zweig.

• January 23 – Thus Spake Ra
  Narrated by Sun Ra from rare interviews 1979‐1992. Music, songs and space‐chants Sun Ra and his Astro‐Infinity Arkestra featuring June Tyson, John Gilmore and Marshall Allen. Recorded in Kansas City, New York City, Copenhagen, Milan, Oakland and Berlin.
• January 30 – Solar Flare: Sun Ra Riffs the Blues Kansas City Style
  If jazz is happiness, as Sun Ra contends, then the blues is a vehicle for transformation—the pathway to rise above the unenlightened savagery of the terrestrial sphere. Sun Ra jumps the blues Kansas City style as influenced by their many gigs at rib joints, lofts, dance halls and theaters in the Midwest in the 1980s. With commentary by Chuck Haddix, author of “Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop.”
• February 6 – Seeds from the Sun
  Sun Ra’s music, lyrics and poetry performed by Gamelan Sekkar Jaya, Art Hoyle, Eugene Chadbourne, The Residents, Georgio Gaslini, MC5, Elliott Sharp, Thurston Moore, BCR.

Ark to Microchip, created by Dwight Frizzell and JayMandeville, is heard every Wednesday at 12:30 pm CT on KKFI 90.1 FM Kansas City Community Radio. Programs in the series received a Golden Reel Award from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, an Audio Works Special Selection, a Peabody Award (as part of Lost & Found Sounds), and funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency. Info: Dwight Frizzell 816‐931‐4648, [email protected] or KKFI’s Mike Murphy 816‐931‐3122, [email protected].