CELEBRATED IN GERMANY THE 13th. INTERNATIONAL SUN RA CONVENTION

On May 26th. to 28th. took place in Herrsching, near Munich, the 13th. International Sun Ra Convention. Around 20 participants coming from Germany, United Kingdom, USA, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Korea, Egypt and Spain discussed interesting matters about Sun Ra, watched videos, listened to music and ate and laughed in a wonderful area close to Lake Amersee. Among the many activities, two percussion sessions were celebrated with the gongs of Hartmut Geerken, the host. Plenty of documentation was distributed, starring the first inventory of Geerken's Sun Ra Archives, a long long list by the way. Trudy Morse, arrived specially from USA performed a deep recitation of Sun Ra's poetry with Geerken on the Sun Harp. Both this session and the two percussion improvisations were documented on a recently released limited-edition cd. Salah Ragab, arrived from Cairo, presented the also just released set of 3 cds with recordings of the Arkestra in Cairo in 1984, with Salah himself on the drums. The Convention also included a trip to a village in the vicinity, where resides the La Monte Young Research Center, a very interesting place.

The 14th. Convention, to be celebrated on 2007, seems to have already its ubication chosen: Essaouira, in Maroc. Inch'Alla!