Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993), better known as Sun Ra, was an American
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
composer, bandleader, piano and
synthesizer
A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...
player, and
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...
known for his
experimental music
Experimental music is a general label for any music or music genre that pushes existing boundaries and genre definitions. Experimental compositional practice is defined broadly by exploratory sensibilities radically opposed to, and questioning of, ...
, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific output, and theatrical performances. For much of his career, Ra led "The Arkestra", an ensemble with an ever-changing name and flexible line-up.
Born and raised in
Alabama
(We dare defend our rights)
, anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama"
, image_map = Alabama in United States.svg
, seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery
, LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville
, LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...
, Blount became involved in the
Chicago jazz scene during the late 1940s. He soon abandoned his birth name, taking the name Le Sony'r Ra, shortened to Sun Ra (after
Ra, the Egyptian god of the Sun). Claiming to be an alien from
Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...
on a mission to preach peace, he developed a mythical persona and an idiosyncratic credo that made him a pioneer of
Afrofuturism
Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, and philosophy of science and history that explores the intersection of the African diaspora culture with science and technology. It addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through technocultu ...
.
Throughout his life he denied ties to his prior identity saying, "Any name that I use other than Ra is a pseudonym."
His widely eclectic and
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
music echoed the entire history of jazz, from
ragtime
Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that flourished from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott ...
and early New Orleans hot jazz, to
swing music
Swing music is a style of jazz that developed in the United States during the late 1920s and early 1930s. It became nationally popular from the mid-1930s. The name derived from its emphasis on the off-beat, or nominally weaker beat. Swing bands ...
,
bebop
Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early-to-mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo, complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous changes of key, instrumen ...
,
free jazz
Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians during ...
and
fusion
Fusion, or synthesis, is the process of combining two or more distinct entities into a new whole.
Fusion may also refer to:
Science and technology Physics
*Nuclear fusion, multiple atomic nuclei combining to form one or more different atomic nucl ...
. His compositions ranged from keyboard solos to works for
big band
A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s an ...
s of over 30 musicians, along with electronic excursions, songs, chants, percussion pieces, and anthems. From the mid-1950s until his death, Ra led the musical collective The Arkestra (which featured artists such as
Marshall Allen
Marshall Belford Allen (born May 25, 1924) is an American free jazz and avant-garde jazz alto saxophone player. He also performs on flute, oboe, piccolo, and EWI (an electronic valve instrument made by Steiner, Crumar company).
Allen is best ...
,
John Gilmore John Gilmore may refer to:
* John Gilmore (activist) (born 1955), co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Cygnus Solutions
* John Gilmore (musician) (1931–1995), American jazz saxophonist
* John Gilmore (representative) (1780–1845), ...
and
June Tyson
June Tyson (February 5, 1936 – November 24, 1992) was an American singer, violinist, and dancer who performed with bandleader Sun Ra.
Biography
A native of Albemarle, North Carolina
Albemarle () is a small city and the county seat of Stanly ...
throughout its various iterations). Its performances often included dancers and musicians dressed in elaborate,
futuristic
The future is the time after the past and present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the apparent nature of reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that currently ...
costumes inspired by
ancient Egyptian attire and the
Space Age
The Space Age is a period encompassing the activities related to the Space Race, space exploration, space technology, and the cultural developments influenced by these events, beginning with the Sputnik_1#Launch_and_mission, launch of Sputnik 1 ...
. Following Ra's illness-forced retirement in 1992, the band remained active as
The Sun Ra Arkestra, and, as of 2022, continues performing under the leadership of veteran Ra sideman Marshall Allen.
Though his mainstream success was limited, Sun Ra was a prolific recording artist and frequent live performer, and remained influential throughout his life for his music and persona.
He is now widely considered an innovator; among his distinctions are his pioneering work in
free improvisation
Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician(s) involved. The term can refer to both a technique (employed by any musician in any genre) and as a recognizable genre in its ...
and
modal jazz
Modal jazz is jazz that makes use of musical modes, often modulating among them to accompany the chords instead of relying on one tonal center used across the piece. Although precedents exist, modal jazz was crystallized as a theory by compose ...
and his early use of
electronic keyboard
An electronic keyboard, portable keyboard, or digital keyboard is an electronic musical instrument, an electronic derivative of keyboard instruments. Electronic keyboards include synthesizers, digital pianos, stage pianos, electronic organs an ...
s and
synthesizer
A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...
s.
Over the course of his career, he recorded dozens of singles and over one hundred full-length albums, comprising well over 1,000 songs, making him one of the most prolific recording artists of the 20th century.
Biography
Early life
He was born Herman Blount on May 22, 1914, in
Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...
, as discovered by his biographer,
John F. Szwed, and published in his 1998 book.
He was named after the popular
vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...
stage magician
Black Herman
Benjamin Rucker (June 6, 1889 – April 15, 1934) was an American stage magician, better known by his stage name Black Herman. He was the most prominent African-American magician of his time.
He appears as a major character in Ishmael Reed's 19 ...
, who had deeply impressed his mother.
He was nicknamed "Sonny" from his childhood, had an older sister and half-brother, and was doted upon by his mother and grandmother.
For decades, very little was known about Sun Ra's early life, and he contributed to its mystique. As a self-invented person, he routinely gave evasive, contradictory or seemingly nonsensical answers to personal questions, and denied his birth name.
He speculated, only half in jest, that he was distantly related to Elijah Poole, later known as
Elijah Muhammad
Elijah Muhammad (born Elijah Robert Poole; October 7, 1897 – February 25, 1975) was an African American religious leader, black separatist, and self-proclaimed Messenger of Allah, who led the Nation of Islam (NOI) from 1934 until his deat ...
, leader of the
Nation of Islam
The Nation of Islam (NOI) is a religious and political organization founded in the United States by Wallace Fard Muhammad in 1930.
A black nationalist organization, the NOI focuses its attention on the African diaspora, especially on African ...
.
His birthday for years remained unknown, as his claims ranged from 1910 to 1918. Only a few years before his death, the date of Sun Ra's birth was still a mystery. Jim Macnie's notes for ''Blue Delight'' (1989) said that Sun Ra was believed to be about 75 years old. But Szwed was able to uncover a wealth of information about his early life and confirmed a birth date of May 22, 1914.
As a child, Blount was a skilled pianist. By the age of 11 or 12, he was composing and
sight reading
In music, sight-reading, also called ''a prima vista'' (Italian meaning "at first sight"), is the practice of reading and performing of a piece in a music notation that the performer has not seen or learned before. Sight-singing is used to descri ...
music. Birmingham was an important stop for touring musicians and he saw prominent musicians such as
Fletcher Henderson,
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based ...
, and
Fats Waller
Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller (May 21, 1904 – December 15, 1943) was an American jazz pianist, organist, composer, violinist, singer, and comedic entertainer. His innovations in the Harlem stride style laid much of the basis for modern jazz pi ...
, and others now forgotten. Sun Ra once said, "The world let down a lot of good musicians".
In his teenage years, Blount demonstrated prodigious musical talent: many times, according to acquaintances, he went to
big band
A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s an ...
performances and then produced full transcriptions of the bands' songs from memory. By his mid-teens, Blount was performing semi-professionally as a solo pianist, or as a member of various ''ad hoc'' jazz and
R&B groups. He attended Birmingham's segregated Industrial High School (now known as
Parker High School), where he studied under music teacher John T. "Fess" Whatley, a demanding disciplinarian who was widely respected and whose classes produced many professional musicians.
Though deeply religious, his family was not formally associated with any Christian church or sect. Blount had few or no close friends in high school but was remembered as kind-natured and quiet, an
honor roll student, and a voracious reader. He took advantage of the Black
Masonic Lodge
A Masonic lodge, often termed a private lodge or constituent lodge, is the basic organisational unit of Freemasonry. It is also commonly used as a term for a building in which such a unit meets. Every new lodge must be warranted or chartered ...
as one of the few places in Birmingham where African Americans had unlimited access to books. Its collection on
Freemasonry
Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...
and other esoteric concepts made a strong impression on him.
By his teens, Blount suffered from
cryptorchidism
Cryptorchidism, also known as undescended testis, is the failure of one or both testes to descend into the scrotum. The word is from Greek () 'hidden' and () 'testicle'. It is the most common birth defect of the male genital tract. About 3% of ...
. It left him with a nearly constant discomfort that sometimes flared into severe pain.
Szwed suggests that Blount felt shame about it and the condition contributed to his isolation.
Early professional career and college
In 1934, Blount was offered his first full-time musical job by
Ethel Harper, his biology teacher from the high school, who had organized a band to pursue a career as a singer. Blount joined a musicians'
trade union
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...
and toured with Harper's group through the US
Southeast
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...
and
Midwest
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...
. When Harper left the group mid-tour to move to New York (she later was a member of the modestly successful singing group the Ginger Snaps), Blount took over leadership of the group, renaming it the Sonny Blount Orchestra. They continued touring for several months before dissolving as unprofitable. Though the first edition of the Sonny Blount Orchestra was not financially successful, they earned positive notice from fans and other musicians. Blount afterward found steady employment as a musician in Birmingham.
Birmingham clubs often featured exotic trappings, such as vivid lighting and murals with tropical or oasis scenes. Some believe these influenced the elements Sun Ra incorporated in his later stage shows. Playing for the big bands gave black musicians a sense of pride and togetherness, and they were highly regarded in the black community. They were expected to be disciplined and presentable, and in the segregated South, black musicians had wide acceptance in white society. They often played for elite white society audiences (though they were typically forbidden from associating with the audience).
In 1936, Whatley's intercession led to Blount's being awarded a scholarship at
Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University
Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University (Alabama A&M) is a public historically black land-grant university in Normal, Huntsville, Alabama. Founded in 1875, it took its present name in 1969. AAMU is a member-school of the Thurgood Marsh ...
. He was a music education major, studying composition, orchestration, and music theory. He dropped out after a year.
Trip to Saturn
Blount left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him. In 1936 or 1937, in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said:
Blount claimed that this experience occurred in 1936 or 1937. According to Szwed, the musician's closest associates cannot date the story any earlier than 1952. (Blount also said that the incident happened when he was living in Chicago, where he did not settle until the late 1940s). Sun Ra discussed the vision, with no substantive variation, to the end of his life. His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before
flying saucer
A flying saucer (also referred to as "a flying disc") is a descriptive term for a type of flying craft having a disc or saucer-shaped body, commonly used generically to refer to an anomalous flying object. The term was coined in 1947 but has g ...
s entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of
Kenneth Arnold
Kenneth Albert Arnold (March 29, 1915 – January 16, 1984) was an American aviator, businessman, and politician.
He is best known for making what is generally considered the first widely reported modern unidentified flying object sighting in ...
. It was earlier than other public accounts: about 15 years before
George Adamski
George Adamski (17 April 1891 – 23 April 1965) was a Polish-American author who became widely known in ufology circles, and to some degree in popular culture, after he displayed numerous photographs in the 1940s and 1950s that he said were o ...
wrote about contact with benevolent beings; and almost 20 years before the 1961 case of
Barney and Betty Hill
Barney and Betty Hill were an American couple who claimed they were abducted by extraterrestrials in a rural portion of the state of New Hampshire from September 19 to 20, 1961. It was the first widely publicized report of an alien abduction in ...
, who recounted sinister
UFO abduction
Alien abduction (also called abduction phenomenon, alien abduction syndrome, or UFO abduction) refers to the phenomenon of people reporting their experience of being kidnapped by extraterrestrial beings and subjected to physical and psychologic ...
s. Szwed says that, "even if this story is
revisionist autobiography... Sonny was pulling together several strains of his life. He was both prophesizing his future and explaining his past with a single act of personal mythology."
New devotion to music (late 1930s)
After leaving college, Blount became known as the most singularly devoted musician in Birmingham. He rarely slept, citing
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventio ...
,
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...
, and
Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
as fellow highly productive cat-nappers. He transformed the first floor of his family's home into a conservatory-workshop, where he wrote songs, transcribed recordings, rehearsed with the many musicians who drifted in and out, and discussed Biblical and esoteric concepts with whoever was interested.
Blount became a regular at Birmingham's Forbes Piano Company, a white-owned company. Blount visited the Forbes building almost daily to play music, swap ideas with staff and customers, or copy sheet music into his notebooks.
["Forbes Piano Company."]
''Bhamwiki.com.'' Retrieved September 2, 2014. He formed a new band, and like his old teacher Whatley, insisted on rigorous daily rehearsals. The new Sonny Blount Orchestra earned a reputation as an impressive, disciplined band that could play in a wide variety of styles with equal skill.
Draft and wartime experiences
In October 1942, Blount received a
selective service
The Selective Service System (SSS) is an independent agency of the United States government that maintains information on U.S. citizens and other U.S. residents potentially subject to military conscription (i.e., the draft) and carries out contin ...
notification that he had been
drafted into the
Military of the United States
The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is th ...
. He quickly declared himself a
conscientious objector
A conscientious objector (often shortened to conchie) is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion. The term has also been extended to object ...
, citing religious objections to war and killing, his financial support of his great-aunt Ida, and his chronic hernia. The local draft board rejected his claim. In an appeal to the national draft board, Blount wrote that the lack of black men on the draft appeal board "smacks of
Hitlerism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hit ...
." Sonny's refusal to join the military deeply embarrassed his family, and many relatives ostracized him. He was eventually approved for alternate service at
Civilian Public Service
The Civilian Public Service (CPS) was a program of the United States government that provided conscientious objectors with an alternative to military service during World War II. From 1941 to 1947, nearly 12,000 draftees, willing to serve their ...
camp in
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
, but he did not appear at the camp as required on December 8, 1942. Shortly after, he was arrested in Alabama.
In court, Blount said that alternate service was unacceptable; he debated the judge on points of law and Biblical interpretation. The judge ruled that Blount was violating the law and was at risk for being drafted into the U.S. military. Blount responded that if inducted, he would use military weapons and training to kill the first high-ranking military officer possible. The judge sentenced Blount to jail (pending draft board and CPS rulings), and then said, "I've never seen a nigger like you before." Blount replied, "No, and you never will again."
In January 1943, Blount wrote to the
United States Marshals Service
The United States Marshals Service (USMS) is a federal law enforcement agency in the United States. The USMS is a bureau within the U.S. Department of Justice, operating under the direction of the Attorney General, but serves as the enforc ...
from the
Walker County, Alabama
Walker County is a county located in the central portion of the U.S. state of Alabama.
"ACES Walker County Office" (links/history),
Alabama Cooperative Extension System (ACES), 2007, webpage:
ACES-Walker
As of the 2020 census, the popu ...
jail in
Jasper
Jasper, an aggregate of microgranular quartz and/or cryptocrystalline chalcedony and other mineral phases,Kostov, R. I. 2010. Review on the mineralogical systematics of jasper and related rocks. – Archaeometry Workshop, 7, 3, 209-213PDF/ref> ...
. He said he was facing a
nervous breakdown
A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitti ...
from the stress of imprisonment, that he was suicidal, and that he was in constant fear of sexual assault. When his conscientious objector status was reaffirmed in February 1943, he was escorted to Pennsylvania. He did forestry work as assigned during the day and was allowed to play piano at night. Psychiatrists there described him as "a
psychopathic
Psychopathy, sometimes considered synonymous with sociopathy, is characterized by persistent antisocial behavior, impaired empathy and remorse, and bold, disinhibited, and egotistical traits. Different conceptions of psychopathy have been u ...
personality
ndsexually perverted," but also as "a well-educated colored intellectual."
In March 1943, the draft board reclassified Blount as
4-F because of his hernia, and he returned to Birmingham, embittered and angered. He formed a new band and soon was playing professionally. After his beloved great-aunt Ida died in 1945, Blount felt no reason to stay in Birmingham. He dissolved the band, and moved to Chicago—part of the
Second Great Migration
In the context of the 20th-century history of the United States, the Second Great Migration was the migration of more than 5 million African Americans from the South to the Northeast, Midwest and West. It began in 1940, through World War II, and ...
, southern African Americans who moved north during and after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
Chicago years (1945–1961)
In Chicago, Blount quickly found work, notably with blues singer
Wynonie Harris
Wynonie Harris (August 24, 1915 – June 14, 1969) was an American blues shouter and rhythm-and-blues singer of upbeat songs, featuring humorous, often ribald lyrics. He had fifteen Top 10 hits between 1946 and 1952. Harris is attributed by ...
, with whom he made his recording debut on two 1946 singles, ''Dig This Boogie''/''Lightning Struck the Poorhouse'', and ''My Baby's Barrelhouse''/''Drinking By Myself''. ''Dig This Boogie'' was also Blount's first recorded piano solo. He performed with the locally successful
Lil Green
Lil Green (December 22, 1919 (some sources give 1901 or 1910) – April 14, 1954) was an American blues singer and songwriter. She was among the leading female rhythm and blues singers of the 1940s, with a sensual soprano voice. Gospel singer R ...
band and played bump-and-grind music for months in
Calumet City
Calumet City ( ) is a city in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The population was 36,033 at the 2020 census, a decline of 2.7% from 37,042 in 2010. The ZIP code is 60409.
Etymology
The word ''Calumet'' is the Miꞌkmaq and French word for a ...
strip club
A strip club is a venue where strippers provide adult entertainment, predominantly in the form of striptease or other Erotic dancing, erotic or exotic dances. Strip clubs typically adopt a nightclub or Bar (establishment), bar style, and can also ...
s.
In August 1946, Blount earned a lengthy engagement at the
Club DeLisa
The Club DeLisa, also written Delisa or De Lisa, was an African-American nightclub and music venue in Chicago, Illinois. Located at 5521 South State Street (State Street and Garfield Avenue, on the South Side), it was possibly the most prestigious ...
under bandleader and composer
Fletcher Henderson. Blount had long admired Henderson, but Henderson's fortunes had declined (his band was now made of up middling musicians rather than the stars of earlier years) in large part because of his instability, due to Henderson's long-term injuries from a car accident. Henderson hired Blount as pianist and arranger, replacing
Marl Young Marl Young (January 29, 1917 – 29 April 2009) was an American musician and arranger who helped with the merger of the all-black and all-white musicians unions in Los Angeles in the early 1950s. He later became the first black music director of a ...
. Blount's arrangements initially showed a degree of
bebop
Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early-to-mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo, complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous changes of key, instrumen ...
influence, but the band members resisted the new music, despite Henderson's encouragement.
In 1948, Blount performed briefly in a trio with saxophonist
Coleman Hawkins
Coleman Randolph Hawkins (November 21, 1904 – May 19, 1969), nicknamed "Hawk" and sometimes "Bean", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.Yanow, Scot"Coleman Hawkins: Artist Biography" AllMusic. Retrieved December 27, 2013. One of the first p ...
and violinist
Stuff Smith
Hezekiah Leroy Gordon Smith (August 14, 1909 – September 25, 1967), better known as Stuff Smith, was an American jazz violinist. He is well known for the song " If You're a Viper" (the original title was "You'se a Viper").
Smith was, al ...
, both preeminent musicians. There are no known recordings of this trio, but a home recording of a Blount-Smith duet from 1953 appears on ''Sound Sun Pleasure'', and one of Sun Ra's final recordings in 1992 was a rare sideman appearance on violinist
Billy Bang's ''
Tribute to Stuff Smith''.
In addition to enabling professional advancement, what he encountered in Chicago changed Blount's personal outlook. The city was a center of African-American political activism and fringe movements, with
Black Muslims,
Black Hebrews, and others proselytizing, debating, and printing leaflets or books. Blount absorbed it all and was fascinated with the city's many ancient Egyptian-styled buildings and monuments. He read books such as
George G.M. James's ''Stolen Legacy'' (which argued that classical
Greek philosophy
Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC, marking the end of the Greek Dark Ages. Greek philosophy continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Greece and most Greek-inhabited lands were part of the Roman Empi ...
had its roots in ancient Egypt). Blount concluded that the accomplishments and history of Africans had been systematically suppressed and denied by European cultures.
By 1952, Blount was leading the Space Trio with drummer Tommy "Bugs" Hunter and saxophonist
Pat Patrick, two of the most accomplished musicians he had known. They performed regularly, and Sun Ra began writing more advanced songs.
On October 20, 1952, Blount legally changed his name to Le Sony'r Ra. Sun Ra claimed to have always been uncomfortable with his birth name of Blount. He considered it a
slave name
A slave name is the personal name given by others to an enslaved person, or a name inherited from enslaved ancestors. The modern use of the term applies mostly to African Americans and Afro-Caribbeans who are descended from enslaved Africans who ...
, from a family that was not his. David Martinelli suggested that his change was similar to "
Malcolm X
Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of Is ...
and
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali (; born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.; January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016) was an American professional boxer and activist. Nicknamed "The Greatest", he is regarded as one of the most significant sports figures of the 20th century, a ...
...
roppingtheir slave names in the process of attaining a new self-awareness and self-esteem".
Patrick left the group to move to Florida with his new wife. His friend
John Gilmore John Gilmore may refer to:
* John Gilmore (activist) (born 1955), co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Cygnus Solutions
* John Gilmore (musician) (1931–1995), American jazz saxophonist
* John Gilmore (representative) (1780–1845), ...
(tenor sax) joined the group, and
Marshall Allen
Marshall Belford Allen (born May 25, 1924) is an American free jazz and avant-garde jazz alto saxophone player. He also performs on flute, oboe, piccolo, and EWI (an electronic valve instrument made by Steiner, Crumar company).
Allen is best ...
(alto sax) soon followed. Patrick was in and out of the group until the end of his life, but Allen and Gilmore were the two most devoted members of the Arkestra. In fact, Gilmore is often criticized for staying with Sun Ra for over forty years when he could have been a strong leader in his own right.
Saxophonist
James Spaulding
James Ralph Spaulding Jr. (born July 30, 1937) is an American jazz saxophonist and flutist.
Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, United states, Spaulding attended the Chicago Cosmopolitan School of Music. Between 1957 and 1961, he was a member of Sun ...
and trombonist
Julian Priester
Julian Priester (born June 29, 1935) is an American jazz trombonist and occasional euphoniumist. He is sometimes credited "Julian Priester Pepo Mtoto". He has played with Sun Ra, Max Roach, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, and Herbie Hancock.
B ...
also recorded with Sun Ra in Chicago, and both went on to careers of their own. The Chicago tenor
Von Freeman
Earle Lavon "Von" Freeman Sr. (October 3, 1923 – August 11, 2012) was an American hard bop jazz tenor saxophonist.
Biography
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Freeman as a young child was exposed to jazz. His father, George, a city policeman, was a c ...
also did a short stint with the band of the early 1950s.
In Chicago, Sun Ra met
Alton Abraham
Alton Abraham (5 May 1927 – 6 June 1999) was an African American social entrepreneur who acted as business manager for jazz musician Sun Ra.
Early life
Abraham was born in Chicago and served in the U.S Military in Okinawa from 1945 to 1947. When ...
, a precociously intelligent teenager and something of a kindred spirit. He became the Arkestra's biggest booster and one of Sun Ra's closest friends. Both men felt like outsiders and shared an interest in esoterica. Abraham's strengths balanced Ra's shortcomings: though he was a disciplined bandleader, Sun Ra was somewhat introverted and lacked business sense (a trait that haunted his entire career). Abraham was outgoing, well-connected, and practical. Though still a teenager, Abraham eventually became Sun Ra's ''de facto'' business manager: he booked performances, suggested musicians for the Arkestra, and introduced several popular songs into the group's repertoire. Ra, Abraham and others formed a sort of
book club to trade ideas and discuss the offbeat topics that so intrigued them. This group printed a number of pamphlets and broadsides explaining their conclusions and ideas. Some of these were collected by critic
John Corbett
John Joseph Corbett Jr. (born May 9, 1961) is an American actor and country music singer. On television, he is best known for his roles as Chris Stevens on ''Northern Exposure'' (1990–1995), Aidan Shaw on ''Sex and the City'' (2000–2003), ...
and Anthony Elms as ''The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets'' (2006).
In the mid-1950s, Sun Ra and Abraham formed an
independent record label
An independent record label (or indie label) is a record label that operates without the funding or distribution of major record labels; they are a type of small- to medium-sized enterprise, or SME. The labels and artists are often represented ...
that was generally known as
El Saturn Records
El Saturn Records is an American record label founded in 1957 by Alton Abraham. Among the earliest African American-owned record labels, in the late 1950s and 1960s it was one of the most active artist-owned record labels in the United States. The ...
. (It had several name variations.) Initially focused on 45 rpm singles by Sun Ra and artists related to him, Saturn Records issued two full-length albums during the 1950s: ''
Super-Sonic Jazz'' (1957) and ''
Jazz In Silhouette'' (1959). Producer
Tom Wilson was the first to release a Sun Ra album, through his independent label
Transition Records
Transition Records was a jazz record company and label based in Cambridge, Massachusetts established by Tom Wilson in 1955. A short lived label, Transition announced several albums which were left unreleased, including recordings by Jo Mapes, Yuse ...
in 1957, entitled ''
Jazz by Sun Ra
''Jazz By Sun Ra'' (later titled ''Sun Song'') is the debut album by Sun Ra. The record label for the first pressing says "07-12-56", presumably when it was recorded. The LP originally appeared on Tom Wilson's short-lived ''Transition Records''. ...
''.
[Campbell, Robert L., & Trent, Christopher. ''The Earthly Recordings of Run Ra'' (2nd edition). Redwood, NY: Cadence Jazz Books, 2000. ] During this era, Sun Ra recorded the first of dozens of singles as a band-for-hire backing a range of
doo wop and
R&B singers; several dozen of these were reissued in a two-CD set, ''The Singles'', by Evidence Records.
In the late 1950s, Sun Ra and his band began to wear outlandish, Egyptian-styled or
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
-themed costumes and
headdress
Headgear, headwear, or headdress is the name given to any element of clothing which is worn on one's head, including hats, helmets, turbans and many other types. Headgear is worn for many purposes, including protection against the elements, d ...
es. These costumes had multiple purposes: they expressed Sun Ra's fascination with ancient Egypt and the
space age
The Space Age is a period encompassing the activities related to the Space Race, space exploration, space technology, and the cultural developments influenced by these events, beginning with the Sputnik_1#Launch_and_mission, launch of Sputnik 1 ...
, they provided a recognizable uniform for the Arkestra, they provided a new identity for the band onstage, and comic relief. (Sun Ra thought ''avant garde'' musicians typically took themselves far too seriously.)
New York years (1961–1968)
Sun Ra and the Arkestra moved to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
in the fall of 1961. To save money, Sun Ra and his band members lived communally. This enabled Sun Ra to request rehearsals spontaneously and at any time, which was his established habit. It was during this time in New York that Sun Ra recorded the album ''
The Futuristic Sound of Sun Ra.''
In March 1966, the Arkestra secured a regular Monday night gig at
Slug's Saloon
Slugs' Saloon was a jazz club at 242 East 3rd Street, between Avenue B and C in Manhattan's East Village, operating from the mid-1960s to 1972.
The location, in what was then a run-down part of New York City, first hosted a Ukrainian restaurant a ...
. This was a breakthrough to new audiences and recognition. Sun Ra's popularity reached an early peak during this period, as the
beat generation
The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generatio ...
and early followers of
psychedelia
Psychedelia refers to the psychedelic subculture of the 1960s and the psychedelic experience. This includes psychedelic art, psychedelic music and style of dress during that era. This was primarily generated by people who used psychedelic ...
embraced him. Regularly for the next year and a half (and intermittently for another half-decade afterwards), Sun Ra and company performed at Slug's for audiences that eventually came to include music critics and leading jazz musicians. Opinions of Sun Ra's music were divided (and hecklers were not uncommon).
High praise, however, came from two of the architects of bebop. Trumpeter
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy Eldridge but addi ...
offered encouragement, once stating, "Keep it up, Sonny, they tried to do the same shit to me," and pianist
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk (, October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including " 'Round Midnight", "B ...
chided someone who said Sun Ra was "too far out" by responding, "Yeah, but it ''swings''."
Also in 1966, Sun Ra, with members of the Arkestra and Al Kooper's Blues Project, recorded the album ''Batman and Robin'' under the pseudonym, The Sensational Guitars of Dan and Dale. The album consisted primarily of instrumental variations on the
Batman Theme
"Batman Theme", the title song of the 1966 ''Batman (TV series), Batman'' TV series, was composed by Neal Hefti. This song is built around a guitar hook reminiscent of spy film scores and surf music. It has a twelve bar blues progression, using ...
and public domain classical music, with an uncredited female vocalist singing the "Robin Theme."
Despite their planned management of money, the costs of New York eventually became too high and motivated the group to move to Philadelphia.
Philadelphia years (1968)
In 1968, when the New York building they were renting was put up for sale, Sun Ra and the Arkestra relocated to the
Germantown Germantown or German Town may refer to:
Places
Australia
* Germantown, Queensland, a locality in the Cassowary Coast Region
United States
* Germantown, California, the former name of Artois, a census-designated place in Glenn County
* Ge ...
section of
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
. Sun Ra moved into a house on Morton Street that became the Arkestra's base of operations until his death. It eventually became known as the Arkestral Institute of Sun Ra. Apart from occasional complaints about the noise of rehearsals, they were soon regarded as good neighbors because of their friendliness, drug-free living, and rapport with youngsters. The saxophonist
Danny Ray Thompson
Danny Ray Thompson (October 1, 1947 – March 12, 2020) was an American jazz musician. He played baritone saxophone with the Sun Ra Arkestra and managed the band for a period of time.
Early life
Thompson was born in New York City, to Elgie and ...
owned and operated the Pharaoh's Den, a convenience store in the neighborhood. When lightning struck a tree on their street, Sun Ra took it as a good omen. James Jacson fashioned the Cosmic Infinity Drum from the scorched tree trunk. They commuted via railroad to New York for the Monday night gig at Slug's and for other engagements.
Sun Ra became a fixture in Philadelphia, appearing semi-regularly on
WXPN
WXPN (88.5 FM) is a non-commercial, public radio station licensed to The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that broadcasts an adult album alternative (AAA) radio format, along with many other format shows ...
radio, giving lectures to community groups, or visiting the city's libraries. In the mid-1970s, the Arkestra sometimes played free Saturday afternoon concerts in a Germantown park near their home. At their mid-1970s shows in Philadelphia nightclubs, someone stood at the back of the room, selling stacks of unmarked LPs in plain white sleeves, pressed from recordings of the band's live performances.
California and world tours (1968–1993)
![SunRa in 1992 (cropped)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/SunRa_in_1992_%28cropped%29.jpg)
In late 1968, Sun Ra and the Arkestra made their first tour of the US West Coast. Reactions were mixed.
Hippie
A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...
s accustomed to long-form psychedelia like the
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. The band is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, Folk music, folk, country music, country, jazz, bluegrass music, bluegrass, ...
were often bewildered by the Arkestra. By this time, the performance included 20–30 musicians, dancers, singers, fire-eaters, and elaborate lighting. John Burks of ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
'' wrote a positive review of a
San Jose State College
San José State University (San Jose State or SJSU) is a public university in San Jose, California. Established in 1857, SJSU is the oldest public university on the West Coast and the founding campus of the California State University (CSU) sy ...
concert. Sun Ra was featured on the April 19, 1969 cover of ''Rolling Stone'' magazine, which introduced his inscrutable gaze to millions. During this tour, Damon Choice, then an art student at San Jose, joined the Arkestra and became its vibraphonist.
Starting with concerts in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom in 1970, the Arkestra began to tour internationally. They played to audiences who had known his music only through records. Sun Ra continued playing in Europe almost to the end of his life. The saxophonist Danny Ray Thompson became a ''de facto'' tour and business manager during this era, specializing in what he called "no bullshit
C.O.D.," preferring to take cash before performing or delivering records.
In early 1971, Sun Ra was appointed as artist-in-residence at
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
, teaching a course called ''The Black Man In the Cosmos''. Few students enrolled, but his classes were often full of curious people from the surrounding community. One half-hour of each class was devoted to a lecture (complete with handouts and homework assignments), the other half-hour to an Arkestra performance or Sun Ra keyboard solo. Reading lists included the works of
Madame Blavatsky and
Henry Dumas
Henry Dumas (July 20, 1934 – May 23, 1968) was an American writer and poet. He has been called "an absolute genius" by Toni Morrison, who as a commissioning editor at Random House published posthumous collections both of his poetry, ''Play Ebo ...
, the
Tibetan Book of the Dead
The ''Bardo Thodol'' (, "Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State"), commonly known in the West as ''The Tibetan Book of the Dead'', is a terma text from a larger corpus of teachings, the ''Profound Dharma of Self-Liberation ...
,
Alexander Hislop
Alexander Hislop (1807 – 13 March 1865) was a Free Church of Scotland minister known for his criticisms of the Roman Catholic Church. He was the son of Stephen Hislop (died 1837), a mason by occupation and an elder of the Relief Church. Al ...
's ''
The Two Babylons
''The Two Babylons'', subtitled ''Romanism and its Origins,'' is a book that started out as a religious pamphlet published in 1853 by the Presbyterian Free Church of Scotland theologian Alexander Hislop (1807–65).
Its central theme is the ar ...
'',
The Book of Oahspe, and assorted volumes concerning
Egyptian hieroglyph
Egyptian hieroglyphs (, ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt, used for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters.There were about 1,00 ...
s,
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
folklore, and other topics.
In 1971, Sun Ra traveled throughout Egypt with the Arkestra at the invitation of the drummer
Salah Ragab. He returned to Egypt in 1983 and 1984, when he recorded with Ragab. Recordings made in Egypt were released as ''Live in Egypt'', ''Nidhamu'', ''Sun Ra Meets Salah Ragab'', ''Egypt Strut'' and ''Horizon''.
In 1972, San Francisco public TV station
KQED producer John Coney, producer
Jim Newman, and screenwriter Joshua Smith worked with Sun Ra to produce an 85-minute feature film, entitled ''
Space Is the Place
''Space Is the Place'' is an 85-minute Afrofuturist science fiction film made in 1972 and released in 1974.[Oakland
Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...](_blank)
and
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
. A 1975 show concert by the Arkestra in Cleveland featured an early lineup of
Devo
Devo (, originally ) is an American rock band from Akron, Ohio, formed in 1973. Their classic line-up consisted of two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs (Mark and Bob) and the Casales (Gerald and Bob), along with Alan Myers. The band had a ...
as the opening act. On May 20, 1978, Sun Ra and the Arkestra appeared on the TV show ''
Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock. Michaels currently serves a ...
'' (S3 E20).
In New York City in the fall of 1979, Sun Ra and the Arkestra played as the "house band" at the
Squat Theatre
Squat Theatre (1977–1991) was a Hungarian theatre company from Budapest which left Hungary for Paris and then New York City, where they performed experimental theatre. History
Living in Paris in 1977, a friend of the company, Tamas Szentjoby, s ...
on 23rd Street, which was the performance venue of the avant-garde Hungarian theater troupe.
Janos, their manager, transformed the theater into a nightclub while most of the troupe was away that season performing in Europe. Debbie Harry,
The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City in 1964. The original line-up consisted of singer/guitarist Lou Reed, multi-instrumentalist John Cale, guitarist Sterling Morrison, and drummer Angus MacLise. MacLise ...
's
John Cale
John Davies Cale (born 9 March 1942) is a Welsh musician, composer, singer, songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the American rock band the Velvet Underground. Over his six-decade career, Cale has worked in various styl ...
and
Nico
Naftiran Intertrade Company limited (NICO) is a Swiss-based subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). NICO is a general contractor for the oil and gas industry. NIOC buys the vast majority of Iran's gasoline imports. NICO is a key pl ...
(from
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...
's Factory days),
John Lurie
John Lurie (born December 14, 1952) is an American musician, painter, actor, director, and producer. He co-founded the Lounge Lizards jazz ensemble; has acted in 19 films, including ''Stranger than Paradise'' and '' Down by Law''; has composed ...
and
The Lounge Lizards
The Lounge Lizards were an eclectic musical group founded by saxophonist John Lurie and his brother, pianist Evan Lurie, in 1978. Initially known for their ironic, tongue-in-cheek take on jazz, The Lounge Lizards eventually became a showcase f ...
, and other pop and avant-garde musicians were regulars. Sun Ra was disciplined and drank only club soda at the gigs, but did not impose his strict code on his musicians. They respected his discipline and authority. Soft-spoken and charismatic, Sun Ra turned Squat Theater into a universe of big band "space" jazz backed by a floor show of sexy Jupiterettes. He directed while playing three synthesizers at the same time. In those days, "Space Is The Place" was the space at Squat.
The Arkestra continued their touring and recording through the 1980s and into the 1990s.
Death
Sun Ra had a
stroke
A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...
in 1990, but kept composing, performing, and leading the Arkestra. Late in his career, he opened a few concerts for the New York–based rock group
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth was an American rock band based in New York City, formed in 1981. Founding members Thurston Moore (guitar, vocals), Kim Gordon (bass, vocals, guitar) and Lee Ranaldo (guitar, vocals) remained together for the entire history of the b ...
. When too ill to perform and tour, Sun Ra appointed Gilmore to lead the Arkestra. (Gilmore was frail from
emphysema
Emphysema, or pulmonary emphysema, is a lower respiratory tract disease, characterised by air-filled spaces ( pneumatoses) in the lungs, that can vary in size and may be very large. The spaces are caused by the breakdown of the walls of the alve ...
; after his death in 1995, Allen took over leadership of the Arkestra.)
In late 1992, Sun Ra returned to his birth city of Birmingham to live with his older sister, Mary Jenkins, who (along with various Blount cousins) became his caretaker. In January, he was admitted to Princeton Baptist Medical Center, suffering from congestive heart failure, respiratory failure, strokes, circulatory problems, and other serious maladies.
He died in the hospital on May 30, 1993, and was buried at the
Elmwood Cemetery. The footstone reads "Herman Sonny Blount aka Le Sony'r Ra".
The Arkestra
![Sun ra arkestra](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Sun_ra_arkestra.jpg)
Following Sun Ra's death, the Arkestra was led by tenor saxophonist
John Gilmore John Gilmore may refer to:
* John Gilmore (activist) (born 1955), co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Cygnus Solutions
* John Gilmore (musician) (1931–1995), American jazz saxophonist
* John Gilmore (representative) (1780–1845), ...
and later performed under the direction of alto saxophonist
Marshall Allen
Marshall Belford Allen (born May 25, 1924) is an American free jazz and avant-garde jazz alto saxophone player. He also performs on flute, oboe, piccolo, and EWI (an electronic valve instrument made by Steiner, Crumar company).
Allen is best ...
. A 1999 album led by Allen, ''Song for the Sun'', featured
Jimmy Hopps
James Edward Hopps Jr. (born 1939) is an American jazz drummer. Although he never recorded as a leader, he worked extensively with Roland Kirk, Charles Tolliver, Stanley Cowell, and Pharoah Sanders during some of their well known sessions. He al ...
and
Dick Griffin
James Richard Griffin (born January 28, 1940, in Jackson, Mississippi) is an American jazz trombonist known for his work on Strata-East Records, and with Rahsaan Roland Kirk.
As a child he studied piano, soon switching to trombone.
After earnin ...
. In the summer of 2004 the Arkestra became the first American jazz band to perform in
Tuva
Tuva (; russian: Тува́) or Tyva ( tyv, Тыва), officially the Republic of Tuva (russian: Респу́блика Тыва́, r=Respublika Tyva, p=rʲɪˈspublʲɪkə tɨˈva; tyv, Тыва Республика, translit=Tyva Respublika ...
, in southern Siberia, where they played five sets at the Ustuu-Huree Festival.
As of July 2019, the Arkestra continues to tour and perform. In September 2008 they played for 7 days in a row at the
ZXZW
Incubate was an annual multidisciplinary arts festival held every September in Tilburg, Netherlands from 2005 to 2016. It was originally named ZXZW, but changed its name in 2009 to "Incubate" after a request from the Austin, US-based festival SXSW. ...
festival, each day emphasizing different aspects of the musical legacy of Sun Ra. In 2009, they performed at Philadelphia's
Institute of Contemporary Art in conjunction with an exhibition that explored the intersection of the Arkestra's performing legacy and the practice of contemporary art. In 2011, they ventured to Australia for the first time, for the 2011
Melbourne International Jazz Festival
The Melbourne International Jazz Festival is an annual jazz music festival first held in Melbourne, Australia in 1998. The Festival takes place in concert halls, arts venues, jazz clubs and throughout the streets of Melbourne.
The 2021 Festiva ...
and MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) in Tasmania. In 2017, the Arkestra performed at the 31st
Lowell Folk Festival
The Lowell Folk Festival is the longest-running, and second-largest, free folk festival in the United States. Only Seattle's Northwest Folklife is larger, both in attendance and number of performance stages. It is made up of three days of tradition ...
in Lowell Massachusetts. In 2019, it was announced that the Arkestra would perform at
Portland, Oregon
Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...
's
Hollywood Theater for three nights on July 14, 15, and 16. On October 22, 2021, they performed at th
BRIC JazzFestin Downtown Brooklyn.
Music
Sun Ra's piano technique touched on many styles: his youthful fascination with
boogie woogie
Boogie-woogie is a genre of blues music that became popular during the late 1920s, developed in African-American communities since 1870s.Paul, Elliot, ''That Crazy American Music'' (1957), Chapter 10, p. 229. It was eventually extended from pi ...
,
stride piano
Stride jazz piano, often shortened to stride, is a jazz piano style that arose from ragtime players. Prominent stride pianists include James P. Johnson, Willie "The Lion" Smith, Willie "the Lion" Smith, Fats Waller, Luckey Roberts, Mrs Mills a ...
and
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
, a sometimes refined touch reminiscent of
Count Basie
William James "Count" Basie (; August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984) was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. In 1935, he formed the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and the ...
or
Ahmad Jamal, and angular phrases in the style of
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk (, October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including " 'Round Midnight", "B ...
or brutal, percussive attacks like
Cecil Taylor. Often overlooked is the range of influences from
classical music
Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...
– Sun Ra cited
Chopin,
Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one o ...
,
Schoenberg and
Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, , group=n (9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his First Symphony in 1926 and was regarded throughout his life as a major compo ...
as his favorite composers for the piano.
Sun Ra's music can be roughly divided into three phases, but his records and performances were full of surprises and the following categories should be regarded only as approximations.
Chicago phase
The first period occurred in the 1950s when Sun Ra's music evolved from
big band
A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s an ...
swing into the outer-space-themed "cosmic jazz" for which he was best known. Music critics and jazz historians say some of his best work was recorded during this period and it is also some of his most accessible music. Sun Ra's music in this era was often tightly arranged and sometimes reminiscent of
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based ...
's, Count Basie's, or other important swing music ensembles. However, there was a strong influence from post-swing styles like
bebop
Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early-to-mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo, complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous changes of key, instrumen ...
,
hard bop
Hard bop is a subgenre of jazz that is an extension of bebop (or "bop") music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz that incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospe ...
, and
modal jazz
Modal jazz is jazz that makes use of musical modes, often modulating among them to accompany the chords instead of relying on one tonal center used across the piece. Although precedents exist, modal jazz was crystallized as a theory by compose ...
, and touches of the exotic and hints of the experimentalism that dominated his later music. Notable Sun Ra albums from the 1950s include ''
Sun Ra Visits Planet Earth'', ''
Interstellar Low Ways
''Interstellar Low Ways'' is an album recorded by the American jazz musician Sun Ra and his Myth Science Arkestra, mostly recorded in Chicago, 1960, and released in 1967 on his own El Saturn Records, El Saturn label. Originally titled ''Rocket Num ...
'', ''
Super-Sonic Jazz'', ''
We Travel the Space Ways'', ''
The Nubians of Plutonia'' and ''
Jazz In Silhouette''.
Ronnie Boykins
Ronald Boykins (December 17, 1935 – April 20, 1980) was a jazz bassist and is best known for his work with pianist/bandleader Sun Ra, although he had played with such disparate musicians as Muddy Waters, Johnny Griffin, and Jimmy Witherspoon pr ...
, Sun Ra's bassist, has been described as "the pivot around which much of Sun Ra's music revolved for eight years." This is especially pronounced on the key recordings from 1965 (''
The Magic City'', ''
The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One'', and ''
The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume Two
''The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume Two'' is a 1965 recording by the jazz musician Sun Ra and his Solar Arkestra. Where '' ''Volume One' of the ''Heliocentric Worlds'' series had predominantly featured short abstract pieces, ''Volume Tw ...
'') where the intertwining lines of Boykins' bass and Ra's electronic keyboards provide cohesion.
New York phase
After the move to New York, Sun Ra and company plunged headlong into the experimentalism that they had only hinted at in Chicago. The music was often extremely loud and the Arkestra grew to include multiple drummers and percussionists. In recordings of this era, Ra began to use new technologies—such as extensive use of tape delay—to assemble spatial sound pieces that were far removed from earlier compositions such as ''Saturn''. Recordings and live performances often featured passages for unusual instrumental combinations, and passages of collective playing that incorporated
free improvisation
Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician(s) involved. The term can refer to both a technique (employed by any musician in any genre) and as a recognizable genre in its ...
. It is often difficult to tell where compositions end and improvisations begin.
In this era, Sun Ra began conducting using hand and body gestures. This system inspired cornetist
Butch Morris, who later developed his own more highly refined way to conduct improvisers.
Though often associated with avant-garde jazz, Sun Ra did not believe his work could be classified as "free music": "I have to make sure that every note, every nuance, is correct... If you want to call it that, spell it ''p-h-r-e'', because ''ph'' is a definite article and ''re'' is the name of the sun. So I play ''phre'' music – music of the sun."
Seeking to broaden his compositional possibilities, Sun Ra insisted all band members double on various percussion instruments – predating
world music by drawing on various ethnic musical forms – and most saxophonists became
multireedist
A multireedist is a musician capable of performing on more than one reed instrument. Many reed instruments are similar enough that if a musician plays one, they are expected to be able to play the other. Examples of this are the oboe and Engli ...
s, adding instruments such as flutes, oboes, or clarinets to their arsenals. In this era, Sun Ra was among the first of any musicians to make extensive and pioneering use of
synthesizer
A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...
s and other various
electronic keyboards
An electronic keyboard, portable keyboard, or digital keyboard is an electronic musical instrument, an electronic derivative of keyboard instruments. Electronic keyboards include synthesizers, digital pianos, stage pianos, electronic organs ...
; he was given a prototype
Minimoog
The Minimoog is an analog synthesizer first manufactured by Moog Music between 1970 and 1981. Designed as a more affordable, portable version of the modular Moog synthesizer, it was the first synthesizer sold in retail stores. It was first popul ...
by its inventor,
Robert Moog
Robert Arthur Moog ( ; May 23, 1934 – August 21, 2005) was an American engineer and electronic music pioneer. He was the founder of the synthesizer manufacturer Moog Music and the inventor of the first commercial synthesizer, the Moog synthesi ...
. According to the
Bob Moog Foundation
The Bob Moog Memorial Foundation was created after the death of Dr. Robert Moog in 2005, and officially launched in August, 2006. His family established the foundation to honor the legacy of Moog "through its mission of igniting creativity at the ...
: "Sun Ra first met Robert Moog after ''
Downbeat
' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chi ...
'' journalist and Sun Ra acquaintance
arranged for a visit to Moog’s factory in
Trumansburg in the Fall of 1969....it was during this visit that Moog loaned Sun Ra a prototype Minimoog (Model B), several months before the commercial instrument (Model D) was introduced in March 1970. Ra immediately added the instrument to his repertoire of keyboards, later acquired a second, and featured the Minimoog prominently on many of his recordings of the early 1970s."
Notable titles from this period include ''
The Magic City'', ''
Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy'', ''When Sun Comes Out'', ''
The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One'', ''
Atlantis
Atlantis ( grc, Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος, , island of Atlas (mythology), Atlas) is a fictional island mentioned in an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato's works ''Timaeus (dialogue), Timaeus'' and ''Critias (dialogue), Critias'' ...
'', ''Secrets of the Sun'' and ''Other Planes of There''.
Philadelphia phase
During their third period, beginning in the 1970s, Sun Ra and the Arkestra settled down into a relatively conventional sound, often incorporating swing standards, although their records and concerts were still highly eclectic and energetic, and typically included at least one lengthy, semi-improvised percussion jam. Sun Ra was explicitly asserting a continuity with the ignored jazz tradition: "They tried to fool you, now I got to school you, about jazz, about jazz" he chanted in concerts, framing the inclusion of pieces by
Fletcher Henderson and
Jelly Roll Morton
Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe (later Morton; c. September 20, 1890 – July 10, 1941), known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer. Morton was jazz's first arranger, proving that a gen ...
.
In the 1970s Sun Ra took a liking to the films of
Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...
. He incorporated smatterings of Disney musical numbers into many of his performances from then on. In the late 1980s the Arkestra performed a concert at
Walt Disney World
The Walt Disney World Resort, also called Walt Disney World or Disney World, is an entertainment resort complex in Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista, Florida, United States, near the cities of Orlando and Kissimmee. Opened on October 1, 1971, th ...
. The Arkestra's version of "
Pink Elephants on Parade" is available on ''Stay Awake'', a tribute album of Disney tunes played by various artists and produced by
Hal Willner
Hal Willner (April 6, 1956 – April 7, 2020) was an American music producer working in recording, films, television, and live events. He was best known for assembling tribute albums and events featuring a wide variety of artists and musical sty ...
. A number of Sun Ra's 1970s concerts are available on CD, but none have received a wide release in comparison to his earlier music. In 1978–1980 performances, Sun Ra added a large electronic creation, the Outerspace Visual Communicator, which produced images rather than sounds; this was performed at a keyboard by its inventor, Bill Sebastian. During concerts, the OVC usually was positioned at center stage behind the Arkestra while Sebastian sat on stage with the musicians.
Musicians
Dozens of musicians—perhaps hundreds—passed through Sun Ra's bands over the years. Some stayed with him for decades, while others played on only a few recordings or performances.
Sun Ra was personally responsible for the vast majority of the constant changes in the Arkestra's lineup. According to contrabassist
Jiunie Booth
Arthur Edward Booth Jr. (February 12, 1948 – July 11, 2021) was an American jazz bassist. His professional name was Juini Booth, though his nickname has been spelled Jiunie, Junie, Joony, Jooney, Joonie, Juni, Juney, and Junius, over the course ...
, a member of the Arkestra, Sun Ra did not confront any musician whose performance he was unsatisfied with. Instead, he would simply gather the entire Arkestra minus the offending musician, and skip town—leaving the fired musician stranded.
The following is a partial list of musical collaborators, and the eras when they played with Sun Ra or the Arkestra:
* Yahya Abdul-Majid, tenor saxophone (1980–2020)
* Fred Adams, trumpet (1981–?)
*
Luqman Ali (Edward Skinner), drums (1960, 1977–?)
*
Marshall Allen
Marshall Belford Allen (born May 25, 1924) is an American free jazz and avant-garde jazz alto saxophone player. He also performs on flute, oboe, piccolo, and EWI (an electronic valve instrument made by Steiner, Crumar company).
Allen is best ...
, alto saxophone, flute, oboe (1957–present)
* Atakatune (Stanley Morgan), percussion (1972–1992)
*
Ayé Aton (Robert Underwood), drums and percussion (1972–1976)
*
Robert Barry, drums (1955–1968, 1979)
*
Ronnie Boykins
Ronald Boykins (December 17, 1935 – April 20, 1980) was a jazz bassist and is best known for his work with pianist/bandleader Sun Ra, although he had played with such disparate musicians as Muddy Waters, Johnny Griffin, and Jimmy Witherspoon pr ...
, double bass (1957–1974)
*
Arthur "Jiunie" Booth, double bass
* Darryl Brown, drums (1970–1972)
* Owen "Fiidla" Brown, violin, dance, vocals (1987–1990s and later appearances)
*
Tony Bunn
Robert Anthony Bunn (born November 18, 1957) is an American bassist, composer, producer, and writer.
Biography
Tony Bunn was born into a musical family and began studying music in grade school. By the age of seventeen he was proficient on woo ...
, electric bass (1976)
* Francisco Mora Catlett, drums (1973–1980)
* Samarai Celestial (Eric Walker), drums (1979–1997)
*
Don Cherry
Donald Stewart Cherry (born February 5, 1934) is a Canadian former ice hockey player, coach, and television commentator. Cherry played one game in the National Hockey League (NHL) with the Boston Bruins, and later coached the team for five se ...
,
pocket trumpet (1983–1990)
*
Vincent Chancey
Vincent Chancey (born February 4, 1950) is an American jazz hornist.
Early life and education
Chancey was born and raised in Chicago. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in music from the SIUC School of Music in 1973 and studied under Julius W ...
,
French horn
The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most ...
(1976–1995)
* Damon Choice,
vibraphone
The vibraphone is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a ''vibraphonist,'' ''vibraharpist,' ...
(1974–?)
*
Phil Cohran
Kelan Phil Cohran (May 8, 1927 June 28, 2017) was a jazz musician. He was best known for playing trumpet in the Sun Ra Arkestra in Chicago from 1959 to 1961, and for his involvement in the foundation of the Association for the Advancement of Cre ...
, trumpet (1959–1961)
* India Cooke, violin (1990–1995)
* Danny Davis, alto saxophone, flute (1962–1977, 1985)
*
Dave Davis, trombone (1997–present)
* Joey DeStefano, alto saxophone (1968–1969)
*
Arthur Doyle
Arthur Doyle (June 26, 1944 – January 25, 2014) was an American jazz saxophonist, bass clarinettist, flutist, and vocalist who was best known for playing what he called "free jazz soul music". Writer Phil Freeman described him as having "one o ...
, saxophone (1968, 1989)
* Bruce Edwards. guitar (1983–1993)
*
Eddie Gale
Edward Gale Stevens Jr. (August 15, 1941 – July 10, 2020), known professionally as Eddie Gale, was an American trumpeter known for his work in free jazz, especially with the Sun Ra Arkestra.
Life and career
Born in Brooklyn, New York on August 1 ...
, trumpet (1960s)
* Richard Evans, bass (1950s)
*
John Gilmore John Gilmore may refer to:
* John Gilmore (activist) (born 1955), co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Cygnus Solutions
* John Gilmore (musician) (1931–1995), American jazz saxophonist
* John Gilmore (representative) (1780–1845), ...
, tenor saxophone,
bass clarinet
The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays notes an octave bel ...
(1954–1964, 1965–1995)
* Kwame Hadi (Lamont McClamb), trumpet, conga, vibraphone (1969–1996)
*
Billy Higgins
Billy Higgins (October 11, 1936 – May 3, 2001) was an American jazz drummer. He played mainly free jazz and hard bop.
Biography
Higgins was born in Los Angeles, California, United States. Higgins played on Ornette Coleman's first records, be ...
, drums, (1989)
* Tyrone Hill, trombone (1979–present)
*
Tommy "Bugs" Hunter, drums,
sound engineer
An audio engineer (also known as a sound engineer or recording engineer) helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproductio ...
(1951–1990)
*
Ahmed Abdullah
Ahmed Abdullah (born Leroy Bland; May 10, 1946) is an American jazz trumpeter who was a prominent member of Sun Ra's band.
Biography
He began playing the trumpet at age 13 in his native New York City. One of the first groups he performed with wa ...
, trumpet, (1976–1993)
*
James Jacson, bassoon, oboe, flute, Ancient Egyptian infinity drum (1963–1997)
*
Clifford Jarvis
Clifford Osbourne Jarvis (August 26, 1941 – November 26, 1999) was an American hard bop and free jazz drummer, who in the 1980s moved to London, England, where he spent the remainder of his career.
Biography
Clifford Jarvis, the son of Malc ...
, drums, (1961–1976, 1983)
*
Donald Jones, drums (1973–1974)
*
Dr. VonFiend (musician)
Doctor is an academic title that originates from the Latin word of the same spelling and meaning. The word is originally an agentive noun of the Latin verb 'to teach'. It has been used as an academic title in Europe since the 13th century, w ...
, various instruments, effects (2006–2009)
*
Wayne Kramer, guitar (2006)
*
Elson Nascimento, percussion, vocals (1987–present)
*
Bob Northern
Robert Northern (May 21, 1934 – May 31, 2020), known professionally as Brother Ah, was an American jazz French hornist.
Life and career
Born in 1934 in Kinston, North Carolina and raised in The Bronx, Northern studied at the Manhattan School ...
,
french horn
The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most ...
*
Eloe Omoe, bass clarinet, oboe
*
John Ore
John Ore (December 17, 1933 – August 22, 2014) was an American jazz bassist.
Ore attended the New School of Music in Philadelphia from 1943 to 1946, studying cello and followed this with studies on bass at Juilliard.
In the 1950s he worked wit ...
, double bass
* Taylor Richardson, guitar (1979–1983)
*
Pat Patrick, baritone saxophone, alto saxophone, clarinet, flute (1950–1959, 1961–1977, 1985–1988)
*
Julian Priester
Julian Priester (born June 29, 1935) is an American jazz trombonist and occasional euphoniumist. He is sometimes credited "Julian Priester Pepo Mtoto". He has played with Sun Ra, Max Roach, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, and Herbie Hancock.
B ...
, trombone (1955–1956, 1980s–1990s)
*
Rollo Radford
Rollo ( nrf, Rou, ''Rolloun''; non, Hrólfr; french: Rollon; died between 928 and 933) was a Viking who became the first ruler of Normandy, today a region in northern France. He emerged as the outstanding warrior among the Norsemen who had se ...
, bass
*
Knoel Scott, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, singer and dancer (1979–present)
*
Buster Smith
Henry Franklin "Buster" Smith (August 24, 1904 – August 10, 1991), also known as Professor Smith, was an American jazz alto saxophonist and mentor to Charlie Parker.Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "," https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/artic ...
, drums
*
Marvin "Bugalu" Smith, drums
*
James Spaulding
James Ralph Spaulding Jr. (born July 30, 1937) is an American jazz saxophonist and flutist.
Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, United states, Spaulding attended the Chicago Cosmopolitan School of Music. Between 1957 and 1961, he was a member of Sun ...
, alto sax, flute (1959)
*
Michael Ray, trumpet (1978–present)
*
Pharoah Sanders
Pharoah Sanders (born Ferrell Lee Sanders; October 13, 1940 – September 24, 2022) was an American jazz saxophonist. Known for his overblowing, harmonic, and multiphonic techniques on the saxophone, as well as his use of "sheets of sound", San ...
, saxophone (1964–1965)
* Bill Sebastian, outerspace visual communicator (1978–1980)
*
Talvin Singh
Talvin Singh OBE (born 1970) is an English musician, producer, and composer. A tabla player, he is known for creating an innovative fusion of Indian classical music and drum and bass. Singh is generally considered involved with an electronica s ...
, tablas
*
Alan Silva
Alan Silva (born Alan Lee da Silva; January 22, 1939 in Bermuda) is an United States of America, American free jazz double bassist and Keyboard instrument, keyboard player.
Biography
Silva was born a British subject to an Azores, Azorean/Portug ...
, double bass, cello, violin (early 1970s)
*
Tani Tabbal
Tani Tabbal is a jazz drummer who has worked with Roscoe Mitchell, David Murray, and Cassandra Wilson.
Biography
By the age of 14 Tabbal was playing professionally, performing with Oscar Brown Jr. In his teens he also performed with Phil Cohr ...
, drums
*
Clifford Thornton
Clifford Edward Thornton III (September 6, 1936 – November 25, 1989) was an American jazz trumpeter, trombonist, activist, and educator. He played free jazz and avant-garde jazz in the 1960s and '70s.
Career
Clifford was born in Philadelphia. ...
, trombone
*
June Tyson
June Tyson (February 5, 1936 – November 24, 1992) was an American singer, violinist, and dancer who performed with bandleader Sun Ra.
Biography
A native of Albemarle, North Carolina
Albemarle () is a small city and the county seat of Stanly ...
, singer, violin
Outer Space Visual Communicator
The Outer Space Visual Communicator was a giant machine that was played with hands and feet to create light designs, similar to how musicians create and sound with their instruments. The name of the instrument arose from Bill Sebastian's collaboration with Sun Ra, who incorporated the OVC into the Arkestra from 1978 to 1980 and experimented on video applications from 1981 to 1987.
Philosophy
Sun Ra's
world view
A worldview or world-view or ''Weltanschauung'' is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the whole of the individual's or society's knowledge, culture, and point of view. A worldview can include natural p ...
was often described as a philosophy, but he rejected this term, describing his own manner as an "equation" and saying that while philosophy was based on theories and abstract reasoning, his method was based on logic and pragmatism. Many of the Arkestra cite Sun Ra's teachings as pivotal and for inspiring such long-term devotion to the music that they knew would never make them much money. His equation was rarely (if ever) explained as a whole; instead, it was related in bits and pieces over many years, leading some to doubt that he had a coherent message. However, Martinelli argues that, when considered as a whole, one can discern a unified world view that draws upon many sources, but is also unique to Sun Ra, writing:
He drew on sources as diverse as the
Kabbalah
Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and Jewish theology, school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "rece ...
,
Rosicrucian
Rosicrucianism is a spiritual and cultural movement that arose in Europe in the early 17th century after the publication of several texts purported to announce the existence of a hitherto unknown esoteric order to the world and made seeking it ...
ism,
channeling,
numerology
Numerology (also known as arithmancy) is the belief in an occult, divine or mystical relationship between a number and one or more coinciding events. It is also the study of the numerical value, via an alphanumeric system, of the letters in ...
,
Freemasonry
Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...
,
Ancient Egyptian Mysticism, and
Black nationalism
Black nationalism is a type of racial nationalism or pan-nationalism which espouses the belief that black people are a race, and which seeks to develop and maintain a black racial and national identity. Black nationalist activism revolves ar ...
. Sun Ra's system had distinct
Gnostic
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...
leanings, arguing that the god of most monotheistic religions was not the creator god, not the ultimate god, but a lesser, evil being. Sun Ra was wary of the Bible, knowing that it had been used to justify slavery. He often re-arranged and re-worded Biblical passages (and re-worked many other words, names, or phrases) in an attempt to uncover "hidden" meanings. The most obvious evidence of this system was Ra's practice of renaming many of the musicians who played with him.
Bassoonist/multireedist James Jacson had studied
Zen Buddhism
Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...
before joining Sun Ra and identified strong similarities between Zen teachings and practices (particularly Zen
koan
A (; , ; ko, 화두, ; vi, công án) is a story, dialogue, question, or statement which is used in Zen practice to provoke the "great doubt" and to practice or test a student's progress in Zen.
Etymology
The Japanese term is the Sino-J ...
s) and Ra's use of ''non sequiturs'' and seemingly absurd replies to questions. Drummer Art Jenkins admitted that Sun Ra's "nonsense" sometimes troubled his thoughts for days until inspiring a sort of
paradigm shift
A paradigm shift, a concept brought into the common lexicon by the American physicist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn, is a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline. Even though Kuhn restricted t ...
, or profound change in outlook. Drummer
Andrew Cyrille
Andrew Charles Cyrille (born November 10, 1939) is an American avant-garde jazz drummer. Throughout his career, he has performed both as a leader and a sideman in the bands of Walt Dickerson and Cecil Taylor, among others. AllMusic biographe ...
said Sun Ra's comments were "very interesting stuff... whether you believed it or not. And a lot of times it was humorous, and a lot of times it was ridiculous, and a lot of times it was right on the money."
Sun Ra's philosophy can be further understood in viewing his film ''Space is the Place.'' The film opens with Sun Ra on a distant planet, where the music and vibrations are much different from Earth where the air is filled with the sounds of “guns, anger and frustration.
” A colony is erected on this planet specifically for black people because only on a distant planet will the black race be free to return to their natural vibrations and live in harmony. This will give rise to an “altered destiny.
” The film also discloses Sun Ra's ideas on how to get his people to another planet. This can be accomplished through, “isotopic teleportation, trans-molecularization, or better still – teleport the whole planet here through music.
”
Sun Ra and black culture
According to Szwed, Sun Ra's view of his relationship to black people and black cultures "changed drastically" over time. Initially, Sun Ra identified closely with broader struggles for black power, black political influence, and black identity, and saw his own music as a key element in educating and liberating blacks. But by the heyday of
Black Power radicalism in the 1960s, Sun Ra was expressing disillusionment with these aims. He denied feeling closely connected to any race. In 1970 he said:
I couldn't approach black people with the truth because they like lies. They live lies... At one time I felt that white people were to blame for everything, but then I found out that they were just puppets and pawns of some greater force, which has been using them... Some force is having a good time anipulating black and white peopleand looking, enjoying itself up in a reserved seat, wondering, "I wonder when they're going to wake up."
Afrofuturism
Sun Ra is considered to be an early pioneer of the
Afrofuturism
Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, and philosophy of science and history that explores the intersection of the African diaspora culture with science and technology. It addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through technocultu ...
movement due to his music, writings and other works.
The influence of Sun Ra can be seen throughout many aspects of black music. He grounded his practice of Afrofuturism in a musical tradition of performing blackness that remains relevant today. Sun Ra lived out his beliefs of Afrofuturism in his daily life by embodying the movement not only in his music, but also in his clothes and actions. This embodiment of the narrative allowed him to demonstrate black nationalism as a counternarrative to the present culture.
It was in Chicago, as well, in the mid-fifties, that Ra began experimenting with extraterrestriality in his stage show, sometimes playing regular cocktail lounges dressed in space suits and ancient Egyptian regalia. By placing his band and performances in space and extraterrestrial environments Sun Ra
built a world that was his own view of how the African diaspora connected.
Influence and legacy
Many of Sun Ra's innovations remain important and groundbreaking. Ra was one of the first jazz leaders to use two double basses, to employ the electric bass, to play electronic keyboards, to use extensive percussion and
polyrhythm
Polyrhythm is the simultaneous use of two or more rhythms that are not readily perceived as deriving from one another, or as simple manifestations of the same meter. The rhythmic layers may be the basis of an entire piece of music (cross-rhyth ...
s, to explore
modal music and to pioneer solo and group
freeform improvisations. In addition, he made his mark in the wider cultural context: he proclaimed the African origins of jazz, reaffirmed pride in black history and reasserted the spiritual and mystical dimensions of music, all important factors in the black cultural/political renaissance of the 1960s.
NRBQ
NRBQ is an American rock band founded by Terry Adams (piano), Steve Ferguson (guitar) and Joey Spampinato (bass). Originally the "New Rhythm and Blues Quintet", the group was formed around 1965. Adams disbanded it for a time, and the group re-f ...
recorded "Rocket #9" in 1968 for their debut album on
Columbia. Sun Ra had given NRBQ's
Terry Adams a copy of the song on 45 and told him, "This is especially for you," which Adams reported inspired him to reform the band after a period of inactivity. The band still includes Sun Ra's compositions in their performances, and besides "Rocket #9" have released recordings of "We Travel the Spaceways" and "Love in Outer Space." Several members of the Arkestra have toured with NRBQ over the years, including
Pat Patrick,
Marshall Allen
Marshall Belford Allen (born May 25, 1924) is an American free jazz and avant-garde jazz alto saxophone player. He also performs on flute, oboe, piccolo, and EWI (an electronic valve instrument made by Steiner, Crumar company).
Allen is best ...
, Knoel Scott, Tyrone Hill and Danny Thompson. Adams has joined the Arkestra as their pianist on several tours, most recently during a February 2016 tour of cities in the US southeast.
Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...
's
MC5
MC5, also commonly called The MC5, is an American rock band formed in Lincoln Park, Michigan, in 1963. The original line-up consisted of Rob Tyner (vocals) Wayne Kramer (guitar), Fred "Sonic" Smith (guitar), Michael Davis (bass), and Dennis ...
played a handful of shows with Sun Ra and were influenced by his works immensely. One of their songs from their premiere album ''
Kick Out the Jams'' (1969) featured a track called ''Starship'', which was based on a poem by Ra.
Sun Ra was inducted into the
Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame
The Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame (AJHF) was founded in 1978, and opened a museum on September 18, 1993, with a mission "to foster, encourage, educate, and cultivate a general appreciation of the medium of jazz music as a legitimate, original and dis ...
in 1979.
The ''Sun Ra Repatriation Project'' was started in 2008 with the aim of using interplanetary communication with a view to facilitating Sun Ra's return to planet Earth.
Filmmaker and visual artist
Cauleen Smith
Cauleen Smith (born September 25, 1967) is an American born filmmaker and multimedia artist. She is best known for her experimental works that address the African-American identity, specifically the issues facing black women today. Smith is bes ...
has heavily researched the life and legacy of Sun Ra. Her 2013 exhibition "17" "arises out of
erresearch into the legacy of Sun Ra, who was himself a student of numerology and achieved a kind of cultural immortality the number 17 might be said to refer to". Her project "The Solar Flare Arkestral Marching Band" includes several components related to Sun Ra. "One component (2010) of the project is the production of five flash mob street performances involving a marching band inspired by Sun Ra's Arkestra. The second component of the project... is a full-length video that chronicles the urban legends of Sun Ra’s time in Chicago as well as the contemporary artists who live and work in this city".
The "Sun Ra Revival Post-Krautrock Archestra", formed in Australia during 2014, paid tribute to Sun Ra's philosophies and musical ideas within their albums ''Realm Beyond Realm'' and ''Sun Ra Kills the World''.
The Spatial AKA Orchestra
The Spatial AKA Orchestra is a music ensemble led by Jerry Dammers of The Specials, an English 2 Tone ska band popular in the late 1970s (which also went by the name the Special AKA). Dammers formed the orchestra in 2006 as a tribute to American ...
, formed in 2006 by
Jerry Dammers
Jeremy David Hounsell Dammers GCOT (born 22 May 1955) is a British musician who was a founder, keyboard player and primary songwriter of the Coventry-based ska band The Specials (also known as The Special A.K.A.) and later The Spatial AKA Orche ...
(the main songwriter of British ska revival band
The Specials
The Specials, also known as The Special AKA, are an English Two-tone (music genre), 2 tone and ska revival band formed in 1977 in Coventry. After some early changes, the first stable lineup of the group consisted of Terry Hall (singer), Terr ...
), was originally created as a tribute to Sun Ra, borrowing many of the ideas, themes and tropes from Sun Ra's own performances.
In 2022, a building at 5626 Morton Street known as the Arkestral Institute of Sun Ra was listed as a historic landmark in the
Philadelphia Register of Historic Places The Philadelphia Register of Historic Places (PRHP) is a register of historic places by the Philadelphia Historical Commission. Buildings, structures, sites, objects, interiors and districts can be added to the list.
Criteria
According to the Phila ...
. One of its inhabitants,
Marshall Allen
Marshall Belford Allen (born May 25, 1924) is an American free jazz and avant-garde jazz alto saxophone player. He also performs on flute, oboe, piccolo, and EWI (an electronic valve instrument made by Steiner, Crumar company).
Allen is best ...
, known for his work with
The Sun Ra Arkestra, began living there in 1968.
The
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
has an extensive collection of Sun Ra's works and personal items in the Special Collections Research Center at the
Regenstein Library
The Joseph Regenstein Library, commonly known as "The Reg" is the main library of the University of Chicago, named after industrialist and philanthropist Joseph Regenstein. It is one of the largest repositories of books in the world and is noted ...
. The collection was assembled by Ra's business manager
Alton Abraham
Alton Abraham (5 May 1927 – 6 June 1999) was an African American social entrepreneur who acted as business manager for jazz musician Sun Ra.
Early life
Abraham was born in Chicago and served in the U.S Military in Okinawa from 1945 to 1947. When ...
and is open to the public upon request. The Special Collections Research Center has also repeatedly exhibited Sun Ra's work.
Discography
Filmography
''
Space Is the Place
''Space Is the Place'' is an 85-minute Afrofuturist science fiction film made in 1972 and released in 1974.[Robert Mugge
Robert Mugge (born May 8, 1950) is an American documentary film maker. He has focused primarily on films about music and musicians, but some of his earliest films were not music focused and he is now continuing to branch out as his interests and ...](_blank)
's ''
Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise'' (1980). It interspersed passages of performances and rehearsals with Sun Ra's commentary on various subjects ranging from today's youth to his own place in the cosmos. More recently,
Don Letts' ''Sun Ra – Brother from Another Planet'' (2005) incorporated some of Mugge's material, and includes some additional interviews. ''Points on a Space Age'' (2009) is a documentary by Ephrahaim Asili.
"It's a 60-minute doc along the lines of the talking-head-intercut-with performance clips style."
[DVD Review: ''Points on a Space Age'' (MVD video) , Side Shots Film Blog](_blank)
Identity Theory blog, May 2009
Bibliography
Sun Ra wrote an enormous number of songs and material regarding his spiritual beliefs and music. A magazine titled ''Sun Ra Research'' was published irregularly for many years, providing extensive documentation of Sun Ra's perspectives on many issues. Sun Ra's collected poetry and prose is available as a book, published May 2005, entitled ''Sun Ra, The Immeasurable Equation''.
Another book of over 260 of Sun Ra's poems, ''Sun Ra: Collected Works Vol. 1: Immeasurable Equation'' was published by Phaelos Books in November 2005. ''The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets'', was published in book form in 2005, by WhiteWalls. A collection of Sun Ra's poetry, ''This Planet Is Doomed'', was published by
Kicks Books in 2011.
Notes
References
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External links
The Sun Ra Arkestra Official site, under the direction of
Marshall Allen
Marshall Belford Allen (born May 25, 1924) is an American free jazz and avant-garde jazz alto saxophone player. He also performs on flute, oboe, piccolo, and EWI (an electronic valve instrument made by Steiner, Crumar company).
Allen is best ...
''Space is the Place'' film Outer Spaceways
1968 Sun Ra interview by Dennis Irving(also known as
Denys Irving
Denys George Irving (1944-1976), was born on 4 January 1944 in Colwyn Bay, North Wales.
Biography
He grew up in South London and was educated at Dulwich College (1954–1961), where he was awarded the Fawkes Memorial Scholarship to Balliol Co ...
)
*
''The Sun Ra Arkestra "Live At The Squat Theatre" 8/24/1979''''The Sun Ra Arkestra – Live At The Squat Theatre''
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