USA: Mind's Eye Theater with Sun Ra & His Arkestra-The Stranger: A Radio Play(2018)

"The Stranger," a radio play with musical accompaniment by Sun Ra & His Arkestra, premiered over the Pacifica radio network in the late 1960s, on a program called Mind’s Eye Theater. The exact date is unknown, but 1968 is a consensus guess (as noted in The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra). Ra’s incidental music, which is tight and atmospheric, surfaces sporadically beneath the dialog, but at no time is featured. Ra is named in the closing credits, and the additional personnel were identified by Ra discographer Robert L. Campbell. The circumstances of the soundtrack recording and how Ra's involvement came about are unknown. In a passing mention of the play in his book Space is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra, biographer John Szwed notes that during this time, "The Arkestra continued to pick up work of all sorts, in part because they could play anything, but also because they would sometimes work for almost nothing." The brief musical passages are not identifiable Ra compositions, and were presumably original to this project. Along with conventional acoustic instruments, Ra's notorious "strange strings" (around which he had recorded an entire album a few years prior) are heard to excellent... more credits released December 31, 2018 Script: Maxine Haller Director: Jack Marx Actors: Virgil Catherine Doyle; Raymond Spino; Jack Marx; Maxine Haller Musicians: Sun Ra (piano, electric celeste, strings) Bernard Pettaway (bass trombone, strings) Marshall Allen (alto sax, flute, strings) Danny Davis (alto sax, strings) John Gilmore (tenor sax, strings) Robert Cummings (bass clarinet, strings) Ronnie Boykins (bass, dutar)