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Concert Tue Aug 12 2008
Kelan Phil Cohran Pays Tribute to Sun Ra
Kelan Phil Cohran is Chicago's resident musical shaman. His musical history runs the gamut of Chicago experimental music, having been a founding member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, the founder of the legendary Afro-Arts Theater run in the late 60s, and leader of the band that spawned Earth Wind & Fire and The Pharoahs from its ranks.
In addition to his musical progeny, Cohran has also been prolific in his own familial reproduction, and a group of his sons make up the members of Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, a band that got its start playing on the streets of Chicago, eventually moving to New York, and now enjoys gigs playing with hip hop artists like Mos Def.
One of Cohran's early and strongest influences was Sonny Blount, better known as Sun Ra, and he played in Sun Ra's early band, undoubtedly soaking up Ra's intergalactic vibes.
Cohran pays tribute to Sun Ra's musical universe this Thursday at Millennium Park in a concert that will bring his sons' Hypnotic Brass Ensemble back to Chicago to perform. In addition, the venerable Robert Irving III, Miles Davis' former musical director and keyboardist, will be the musical director of the concert.
The concert itself promises to entertain musically as well as visually, with an array of dancers, singers, and performers involved. To say it will be a spectacle might be an understatement, and I have a feeling you'll have to come to Millennium Park to see/hear it to believe it.
Leading up to the concert, the Great Black Music Project produced a video and audio podcast for your previewing pleasure. The video is in three parts: , Part One, Part Two, and Part Three. The audio podcast is available here.
Kelan Phil Cohran and the Legacy of Sun Ra, Thursday, August 14th, 6:30 PM, Millennium Park, FREE.
Tim Moran / August 15, 2008 6:31 PM
This show seemed to have a great deal of promise-
reportedly 50+ Dancers, Singers, and Instrumentalists were slated to appear.The reality,however,was that the concert was a letdown.For one thing,how can one put on a Tribute to Sun Ra and play only ONE of his tunes? When one thinks of Sun Ra,one thinks of sonically adventurous compositions and an outlandish stage presence.Ra was amusical Adventurer of the highest order.Kelan Phil Cohran's tunes,however, were
rather static,many of them based around One-Chord vamps in the rhythm section(admittedly
enhanced by some fairly funky horn lines by the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble)These tunes simply did not go anywhere,musically speaking.Visually, the show
was great-there was always something to look at- (though the dancers, with their Cardboard Circles
held in front of their bodies like shields, were a little hokey.) A shame, really- this concert had the potential to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.It unfortunately fell a fair bit short of that.