Avreeayl Ra

Avreeayl Ra (actually Arthur O'Neil , born May 21, 1947 in Chicago ) is an American jazz musician ( drums , percussion , bamboo flute ). He is a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) .

Live and act

Ra's father, Arthur "Swinglee" O'Neil, was a tenor saxophonist and mentor to younger musicians from Chicago. His son began his career with Pharoah Sanders and Phil Cohran around 1970, and had lessons with Cohran and "Black" Harold Murray . He was the drummer in the Sun Ra Arkestra from 1984 to 1988 . The longtime member of the AACM has played with musicians from the Chicago jazz scene such as Fred Anderson , Fontella Bass , Lester Bowie , Ari Brown ( Live at the Green Mill ), Hamid Drake , Malachi Favors , Joseph Jarman , Kidd Jordan , Michael Mason , Harrison Bankhead , Kent Kessler and Malachi Thompson ( lift Every Voice 1992), from the 1990s with Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Ensemble , the AACM experimental Ensemble and the New Horizons Ensemble of Ernest Dawkins . He also worked with Amiri Baraka , Oscar Brown Jr. , Donald Garrett , Charles Gayle , Henry Grimes and Billy Harper , but also with Erwin Helfer , Henry Butler and Professor Longhair . In 2016 he was the victim of a racially motivated attack.

Discographic notes

• 1993 - Ernest Dawkins New Horizons Ensemble: South Side Street Songs (Silkheart)
• 2000 - Ernest Dawkins New Horizons Ensemble: Jo'burg Jump ( Delmark )
• 2003 - Ernest Dawkins New Horizons Ensemble: Cape Town Shuffle: Live At Hothouse
• 2006 - Sun Ra Arkestra: Live At Club Lingerie: Audio Series Volume Two
• 2006 - Frequency ( Thrill Jockey ) with Sheila Sachs, Harrison Bankhead, Nicole Mitchell, Edward Wilkerson
• 2008 - Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Ensemble: Xenogenesis Suite: A Tribute To Octavia Butler ( Firehouse 12 Records )

Web links

• Portrait (AACM) ( Memento from December 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
• Avreeayl Ra at Allmusic (English)
• Avreeayl Ra at Discogs (English)
• Interview with Josh Abrams: Two Beats from a Different Drum (2008)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ About John Gilmore . Swinglee O'Neil also played in one of Sun Ra’s early bands, and Sun Ra himself was in one of Swinglee's groups.
2. ↑ Photos and a. from the sessions with Henry Grimes (2005) at All About Jazz  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ release in Gofundme