This one is an absolute rarity!!!

LeROI JONES
A Black Mass
JIHAD (1968)

A recording of the LeRoi Jones play "A Black Mass"
where he was backed up by the Sun Ra Myth-Science Arkestra!
This is the original crazy small private pressing on the Jihad label.

Here's some info from LeRoi Jones (aka Amiri Baraka)
about the production.
"The play A Black Mass was written in Harlem in 1965, much of it
probably at my desk at The Black Arts Repertory Theater School
at West 130th Street and Lenox (now Malcolm X. Blvd.).

It was first performed at the RKO Proctors Theater, Newark
as a companion piece to J-E-L-L-O, a satire on the Jack Benny Show
where Rochester turns militant. The reason it was Newark is because
late in 1965, I decided to walk away from the BARTS because
with the mounting internal strife, the phoneomenon of
'diminishing returns' had set in so disruptively that
the vision of bringing Black Art into the community
and creating what we were later to understand as Cultural Revolution
could no longer succeed at that venue. Black Mass shows the
heavy influence of the Nation of Islam even though,
after Malcolm's murder, I became alienated from that Nation,
essentially as a means of registering my allegiance to Malcolm.
Even the Jacoub story I had gotten from Malcolm when he was
still more directly motivated by Elijah Muhammad's teachings.

Sun Ra was one of the most consistent and supportive artists
associated with the BARTS. He was there several days a week,
teaching all who would listen. Interestingly, it is just recently
that John Swed's book Space Is The Place points out how much
my own thinking was influenced by Ra, and congruently
how the Black Arts experience added a more openly Black nationalist
edge to Ra's actually scientific philosophical musings on the Universe.
At any rate, when I conceived of doing Black Mass to music,
Ra was the only musician in my mind. Not just because
of the 'otherworldliness' of the tale, but the sensuous
'outness' I knew Ra, with his (then titled, the name
changed continuously) Myth-Science Arkestra, would bring,
which I felt would give a material life to the text."

You will not find a better copy of this Historic Black Power LP!

CONDITION: Vinyl Super hot NM- copy!
(A few very light sleeve scuffs that will not
effect the sound at all)

Cover: VG+ (The cover was printed on paper that was then
pasted onto the generic black sleeve- this one has
some ripples from that and some cracking on the edges-
but the main image area is in great shape!)

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jazz, funk, northern, soul, latin, disco & breaks LPs and 45s.

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S&H: U.S.A. $6.50 / Each Additional Record Add 1.00
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