In this captivating book, the first full-length account of life in the Arkestra by any of its members, Harlem-born trumpeter Ahmed Abdullah recounts two decades of traveling the space-ways with the inimitable composer, pianist, and big-band leader Sun Ra.
Gigging everywhere from the legendary Bed-Stuy venue The East to the National Stadium in Lagos, Abdullah paints a vivid picture of the rise of the New York loft jazz scene and the influence of Pan-Africanism on creative music, while also capturing radical artistic and political developments across Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan in the 1970s and ’80s.
Richly illustrated with more than fifty pages of photographs and posters, A Strange Celestial Road interweaves the author’s own moving story - his spiritual development as a Buddhist, his battles with addiction, the tribulations of fatherhood, and life as a working class performer, educator and cab driver - with enthralling tales of tutelage under Archie Shepp collaborator Cal Massey, collaborations with the likes of Ed Blackwell, Marion Brown, and Andrew Cyrille, and profound, occasionally confounding, mentorship by Sun Ra.
Published by Blank Forms.