New play about Sun Ra premiering at St. Louis Community College-Forest Park

Discipline 27-II, a new play based on the life and music of pianist, bandleader and composer Sun Ra, will premiere this weekend at St. Louis Community College - Forest Park.

Written by Bob Mielke, a poet, author and professor of English at Truman State University and a longtime fan of Sun Ra, Discipline 27-II takes its name from a 1973 album by Ra and his Arkestra.

It features "a re-creation of a Sun Ra concert, with the story of his life woven throughout the performance," according to a news release distributed yesterday by StLCC-FP.

“I took the story as Sun Ra told it. So if he says he went to Saturn, that is the way we are telling it,” Mielke said in the release (which, oddly, offers no other information about the play and does not name its cast, musicians, director, or other creative and technical contributors).

Discipline 27-II will be performed at 11:00 a.m. Thursday, April 16 in the Bastian Center for the Performing Arts on the St. Louis Community College-Forest Park campus, 5600 Oakland Ave, and again at 8:00 p.m. Friday, April 17 and Saturday, April 18, and at 3:00 p.m. Sunday, April 19. All performances are free and open to the public.

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Improvisations from Gino Robair

This week, let's take a look at some video clips featuring percussionist, composer, conceptualist and record label operator Gino Robair, who's coming to St. Louis to perform under the auspices of New Music Circle next Saturday, March 7 on the main stage of the Mildred E. Bastian Center for the Performing Arts at St. Louis Community College-Forest Park.

Based in San Francisco, Robair has been a force on the international free improv scene since the 1980s, both for his own playing and composing and for his entrepreneurial work as head of Rastascan, a record label he formed to document his own music as well as that of other free improvising musicians.

For his St. Louis gig, Robair will be performing "I, Norton," which is described both as an "improv opera" and "an opera in real time" based on the eccentric story of Joshua Norton, a San Franciscan who in 1859 declared himself "Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico."

The piece uses a combination of conventional notation, a graphic score, and conducted and free improvisation, and the St. Louis performance will feature 20-piece ensemble of musicians, most recruited locally by NMC. There is a short video excerpt online from a performance last October of "I, Norton," which for some reason I can't seem to successfully embed here, but you can watch it by following this link.

Right here on this page, we've got some videos that showcase Robair's improvisational percussion skills in a couple of different contexts. The first clip features an improvised duet by Robair and tuba player Carl Ludwig Hubsch, while the next two document part of a performance by Robair and saxophonist John Butcher last November at the Vortex Jazz Club in London.

Last but not least is a quick taste of Robair playing solo (along with a brief bit of conversation) that's excerpted from Noisy People, a feature-length documentary about San Francisco area improvisational musicians.