Sun Ra

Infobox musical artist
Name = Sun Ra

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Img_capt = Sun Ra at the New England Conservatory of Music, February 27, 1992
Background = non_vocal_instrumentalist
Birth_name = Herman Poole Blount
Alias = Sun Ra, Le Sony'r Sun Ra
Born = birth date|1914|5|22
Died = death date and age|1993|5|30|1914|5|22
Origin = Birmingham, Alabama, United States
Instrument = Hammond organ, piano, organ, keyboards, Minimoog
Genre = Hard bop, swing, avant-garde jazz, free jazz
Occupation = Bandleader, composer
Years_active = 1934–1993
Associated_acts = Arkestra

Sun Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, legal name Le Sony'r Ra [Swzed, p. 83] ; born May 22 1914 in Birmingham, Alabama – May 30 1993 in Birmingham, Alabama) was a jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his "cosmic philosophy", musical compositions and performances.

"Of all the jazz musicians, Sun Ra was probably the most controversial," according to critic Scott Yanow [http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:39ftxqtgld0e~T1] , due to Sun Ra's eclectic music and unorthodox lifestyle. Claiming that he was of the "Angel Race" and not from Earth, but from Saturn, Sun Ra developed a complex persona of "cosmic" philosophies and lyrical poetry that made him a pioneer of afrofuturism as he preached awareness and peace above all. He abandoned his birth name and took on the name and persona of Sun Ra (Ra being the ancient Egyptian god of the sun), and used several other names throughout his career, including Le Sonra and Sonny Lee.cite news|first=Peter|last=Watrous|title=Sun Ra, 79, Versatile Jazz Artist; A Pioneer With a Surrealist Bent|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE0DE1131F932A05756C0A965958260|work=The New York Times|publisher=The New York Times Company|date=1993-05-31|accessdate=2008-06-01] Blount denied any connection with birth name, saying "That's an imaginary person, never existed … Any name that I use other than Ra is a pseudonym." [cite web|url=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15774733|title=Sun Ra: 'Cosmic Swing'|accessdate=2008-06-01|last=Wilson|first=Nancy|coauthors=et al.|work=NPR Jazz Profiles|format=radio|publisher=National Public Radio]

From the mid-1950s to his death, Sun Ra led "The Arkestra" (a deliberate re-spelling of "orchestra"), an ensemble with an ever-changing lineup and name (it was also called "The Solar Myth Arkestra", "His Cosmo Discipline Arkestra", the "Blue Universe Arkestra", "The Jet Set Omniverse Arkestra", and many other permutations; Sun Ra asserted that the ever-changing name of his ensemble reflected the ever-changing nature of his music.) His mainstream success was limited, but Sun Ra was a prolific recording artist and frequent live performer, Sun Ra's music ranged from keyboard solos to big bands of over 30 musicians; his music touched on virtually the entire history of jazz, from ragtime to swing music, from bebop to free jazz; he was also a pioneer of electronic music, space music, [Szwed (1999), according to author Norman Mailer in 1956, quoted on page 154: "a friend took me to hear a jazz musician named Sun Ra who played 'space music.' " and according to Sun Ra himself, also in 1956, quoted on page 384: "When I say space music, I'm dealing with the void, because that is of space too... So I leave the word space open, like space is supposed to be." and on page 247, in an interview, Sun Ra states: "sometimes when I'm playing for a band, playing space music... I'm using ordinary instruments, but actually I'm using them in a manner... transforming certain ideas over into a language which the world can understand."] and free improvisation, and was one of the first musicians, regardless of genre, to make extensive use of electronic keyboards.

Biography

Early life

For decades, very little was known about Sun Ra's early life; much of it was obscured by Sun Ra himself: he routinely gave evasive, contradictory or seemingly nonsensical answers to personal questions and even went so far as to deny his birth name. Even his birthday was unknown, with years ranging from 1910 to 1918 being claimed for his birth. Only a few years before his death, the date of Sun Ra's birth remained a mystery: Jim Macnie's notes for "Blue Delight" (1989) could only state that Sun Ra was believed to be about 75 years old. However, Ra's biographer John F. Szwed was able to uncover a wealth of information about Ra's early life, including confirming a May 22, 1914 birth date. Named after the popular vaudeville stage magician Black Herman, who had deeply impressed his mother, Sun Ra would speculate, only half in jest, that he was distantly related to Elijah Poole, later famous as Elijah Muhammed, leader of the Nation of Islam. He was nicknamed "Sonny" from his childhood, had an older sister and half-brother, and was doted upon by his mother and grandmother.

Sun Ra was a skilled pianist as a child. By 11 or 12 years old he was writing original songs, [Szwed (1998), p. 12] and was able to sight read sheet music. Birmingham was an important stop for touring musicians, and he saw famous musicians like Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, along with less-famous performers who were often just as talented as their better-known peers, with Sun Ra once stating "the world let down a lot of good musicians". [Szwed, (1998) p. 17] In his teenage years, Sun Ra demonstrated prodigious musical talent: many times, according to acquaintances, he would see big band performances and produce full transcriptions of the bands' songs from memory. By his mid-teens Sun Ra 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 Industrial High School where he studied under famed music teacher John T. "Fess" Whatley, a demanding disciplinarian who was widely respected and whose classes produced many professional musicians.

At ten years old Sun Ra joined the Knights of Pythias, and remained a member until he graduated from high school. His family was deeply religious but was not formally associated with any Christian church or sect. Ra 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. The Black Masonic Lodge was one of the few places in Birmingham where African-Americans had essentially unlimited access to books, and the Lodge's many books on Freemasonry and other esoteric concepts made a large impression on him.

Also by his teens, Sun Ra suffered from cryptorchidism, [Szwed (1998), p. 10] a chronic testicular hernia that left him with a nearly constant discomfort that sometimes flared into severe pain. The condition also left him with a sense of shame and increased his sense of isolation.

=Early professional career and college= In 1934 Blount was offered his first full-time musical job when Industrial High School English teacher Ethel Harper organized a band and decided to pursue a career as a singer. Blount joined a musicians' trade union and Harper's group toured through the US southeast and Midwest. 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), and Blount took over leadership of the group, renaming it the Sonny Blount Orchestra. They continued touring for several months before dissolving the unprofitable group. Though the first edition of the Sonny Blount Orchestra was not financially successful, they earned positive notice from fans and other musicians, and Blount afterwards found steady employment in Birmingham.

The clubs of Birmingham often featured exotic trappings such as vivid lighting and murals with tropical or oasis scenes that were believed to have influenced Sun Ra's later stage shows. The big bands also imparted a sense of pride and togetherness to black musicians: musicians were highly regarded in the black community, and were expected to be disciplined and presentable, and in the segregated south, black musicians arguably had the most acceptance in white society, often performing for white high society audiences (though they were typically forbidden from associating with the audiences).

In 1936 Parker's intercession led to Blount being awarded a scholarship at Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University. He was a music education major, studying composition, orchestration, and music theory, but after a year, he dropped out and then attended some other musical college.

"Trip to Saturn"

Finances and his increasing sense of isolation are believed to have been a factor in Sun Ra's leaving college, but perhaps more importantly, he claimed a visionary experience as a college student, a strange event that was to have a major long-term influence on the young pianist. 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 stated,

… my whole body changed into something else. I could see through myself. And I went up … I wasn't in human form … I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn … they teleported me and I was down on [a] stage with them. They wanted to talk with me. They had one little antenna on each ear. A little antenna over each eye. They talked to me. They told me to stop [attending college] because there was going to be great trouble in schools … the world was going into complete chaos … I would speak [through music] , and the world would listen. That's what they told me. [Szwed, (1998) pp. 28–29]

Sun Ra said that this experience occurred in 1936 or 1937, but according to Swzed, even his closest associates cannot date the story any earlier than 1952 (Sun Ra also stated that it occurred when he was living in Chicago, a town he did not regularly inhabit until the late 1940s). With no substantial variations, Sun Ra discussed the vision to the end of his life. The trip to Saturn allegedly happened a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness, about 15 years before the contactees and their stories of benevolent Space Brothers were publicized, and almost 20 years before sinister UFO abductions were a public concept. Szwed states that "even if this story is revisionist autobiography … Sonny was pulling together several strains of his life. He was both prophesying his future and explaining his past with a single act of personal mythology. [Szwed (1998), pp. 30–31]

New devotion to music (late 1930s)

Even putting Blount's strange vision aside, after leaving college, he became known as perhaps the most singularly devoted musician in Birmingham. He rarely slept, citing Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, and Napoleon as fellow highly productive cat-nappers. He transformed the first floor of his family's home into a conservatory-cum-workshop where he wrote songs, transcribed recordings, rehearsed with the many musicians who were nearly constantly drifting in and out, and discussed Biblical and esoteric concepts with whomever was interested. [Szwed (1998), p. 33]

Blount became a regular at Birmingham's Forbes Piano Company, a white-owned company which—astoundingly for a business in the Deep South—simply ignored the strict Jim Crow laws of the racially segregated era. Blount visited the Forbes building almost daily to play music, swap ideas with staff and customers, or copy sheet music into his notebooks. He formed a new band, and, like his old teacher Parker, 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 notification that he had been drafted into the Military of the United States. He quickly declared himself a conscientious objector, citing religious objections to war and killing, his financial support of his great-aunt Ida, and his chronic hernia. His case was rejected by the local draft board, and in his appeal to the national draft board, Blount wrote that the lack of black men on the draft appeal board "smacks of Hitlerism". [Szwed (1998), p. 43] His family was deeply embarrassed by Sonny's refusal to join the military, and he was effectively ostracized by many of his relatives. Blount was eventually approved for alternate service at Civilian Public Service camp in Pennsylvania. However, Blount didn't appear at the camp as scheduled on December 8 1942, and shortly thereafter, he was arrested in Alabama.

In court, Blount declared that even alternate service was unacceptable to him, and he debated the judge on points of law and Biblical interpretation. Though sympathetic to Blount, the judge also declared that he was clearly in violation of the law, and was risking forcible induction into the U.S. Military. Blount declared that if he were inducted, he would use his military weapons and training to kill the first high-ranking military officer he could. The judge sentenced Blount to jail (pending draft board and CPS rulings), and then declared "I've never seen a nigger like you before;" Blount replied, "No, and you never will again." [Szwed (1998), p. 44]

In January 1943 a desperate Blount wrote to the United States Marshals Service from the Walker County, Alabama jail in Jasper. He said he was facing a nervous breakdown due to the stress of imprisonment, that he was suicidal, and that he was in constant fear of sexual assault. His conscientious objector status was eventually reaffirmed in February 1943 and Blount was escorted to Pennsylvania where he conducted forestry work in the day and was allowed to play piano at night. Psychiatrists there described him as "a psychopathic personality [and] sexually perverted" but also as "a well-educated colored intellectual". [Szwed (1998), p. 46]

In March 1943 Blount was classified as 4-F due to his hernia. He returned to Birmingham embittered and angered by his experiences. He formed a new band and quickly 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 wave of southern African Americans who moved north during and after World War II.

Chicago years (1945–1961)

In Chicago Blount quickly found work, notably with blues singer Wynonie Harris, 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 band and played bump-and-grind music for months in Calumet City strip clubs.

Blount earned a lengthy engagement at Club DeLisa, where he met bandleader and composer Fletcher Henderson. Blount had long admired Henderson, but Henderson's fortunes were fading (his band comprised middling musicians rather than the stars of earlier years) due in large part to his instability. Henderson hired Blount as pianist and arranger. Ra's arrangements initially showed a degree of bebop influence, but the band members largely resisted the new music, despite Henderson's encouragement.

In 1948 Blount performed briefly in a trio with saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and violinist Stuff Smith, both preeminent swing-era musicians. There are no known recordings of this trio, but a home recording of a Blount-Smith duet from 1948 or 1949 appears on "Sound Sun Pleasure", and one of Sun Ra's final recordings was a rare sideman appearance on violinist Billy Bang's "Tribute to Stuff Smith".

In addition to professional advancement, Chicago also 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 like George G.M. James's "Stolen Legacy" (which argued that classical Greek philosophy actually had its roots in ancient Egypt), which convinced Blount 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 [Szwed (1998), p. 4] to have always been uncomfortable with his birth name of Blount, seeing it as a slave name of a family that he was not really a member of. One observer has argued that this change was similar to the way "Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali … [dropped] their slave names in the process of attaining a new self-awareness and self-esteem".cite web|url=http://www.ethnomusic.ucla.edu/staff/martinelli/Sun%20Ra.htm|title=The Cosmic-Myth Equations of Sun Ra|accessdate=2008-05-30|last=Martinelli|first=David A.|year=1991|publisher=UCLA Department of Ethnomusicology]

Patrick left the group to move to Florida with his new wife; not long after, Patrick's friend John Gilmore (tenor sax) joined the group, and Marshall Allen (alto sax) soon joined the fold. Patrick was in and out of the group until the end of his life, but Allen and Gilmore—who would both earn critical praise for their talents—were the two most devoted members of the Arkestra. Saxophonist James Spaulding and trombonist Julian Priester also recorded with Sun Ra in Chicago, and both went on to notable careers of their own.

In Chicago, Blount met Alton Abraham, a precociously intelligent teenager and something of a kindred spirit who became the Arkestra's biggest booster and one of Sun Ra's closest friends. The men both felt like outsiders and shared an interest in fringe 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 would haunt 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 and Anthony Elms as "The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets " (2006).

Sun Ra and Abraham also formed an independent record label in the mid-1950s; it was generally known as El Saturn Records, though (as with the Arkestra) there were several variants of the name. Initially focused on 45 rpm singles by Sun Ra and artists related to him, Saturn Records did issue two full-length albums during the 1950s: "Super-Sonic Jazz" (1956) and "Jazz In Silhouette" (1958). Producer Tom Wilson was actually the first to release a Sun Ra album, through his independent label Transition Records in 1956, entitled "Sun Song".

It was during the late 1950s that Sun Ra and his band began wearing the outlandish, Egyptian-styled or science fiction-themed costumes and headdresses for which they would become known. These costumes had multiple purposes: they evidenced Sun Ra's abiding fascination with ancient Egypt and the space age; they provided a sort of distinctive, memorable uniform for the Arkestra; they were a way to take on a new identity, at least while onstage; and they provided comic relief (Sun Ra thought "avant garde" musicians typically took themselves far too seriously).

New York years (1961–early 1970s)

Sun Ra and most of the core Arkestra (at least Allen, Gilmore, Patrick and Boykins) left Chicago in 1961, staying in Montreal for a few months before settling in New York City. They initially had trouble finding performance venues and began living communally due to New York's higher cost of living. This frustration fueled the drastic changes in the Arkestra's sound as Sun Ra's music underwent a free jazz-influenced experimental period.

In March of 1966 the Arkestra scored a regular Monday night gig at Slug's Saloon. This proved to be a breakthrough to new audiences and recognition. Sun Ra's popularity reached an early peak during this period, as the beat generation and early followers of psychedelia 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 notable jazz musicians. Opinions of Sun Ra's music were divided (and hecklers were not uncommon), but high praise came from two of the architects of bebop: trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie offered encouragement, once stating, "Keep it up, Sonny, they tried to do the same shit to me.", [Szwed (1998), p. 219] while pianist Thelonious Monk chided someone who said Sun Ra was "too far out" by responding, "Yeah, but it "swings"." [Szwed (1998), p. 219; emphasis in original]

Philadelphia years (late 1960s–1990s)

In the late 1960s when the New York building they were renting was put up for sale, Sun Ra and the Arkestra relocated to the Germantown section of Philadelphia, where his Morton Street house remained the Arkestra's base of operations until Sun Ra's death. Apart from occasional complaints about the noise of rehearsals, they were soon regarded as good neighbors due to their friendliness, drug-free living, and rapport with youngsters. Saxophonist Danny Thompson 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 and multireedist James Jacson fashioned the Cosmic Infinity Drum from the scorched tree trunk. They still commuted via railroad to New York for the Monday night gig at Slug's and for other engagements.

In late 1968 Sun Ra and the Arkestra undertook their first tour of the US West Coast. Reactions were mixed; even hippies accustomed to long-form psychedelia like the Grateful Dead were often bewildered by the Arkestra, which included 20–30 musicians, dancers, singers, fire-eaters, and elaborate lighting. John Burks of "Rolling Stone" wrote a positive review of a San Jose State College concert that led to Sun Ra being featured on the cover of the April 19 1969 cover of the magazine and introducing Sun Ra's inscrutable gaze to millions. This first West Coast tour also led to vibraphonist Damon Choice, then an art student at San Jose, joining the Arkestra.

Starting with concerts in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom in 1970, the Arkestra began to find opportunities for working outside the US, playing to audiences who had hitherto known his music only through records. Sun Ra continued playing in Europe to nearly the end of his life. Given Sun Ra's unorthodox financial management, saxophonist Danny Thompson became a "de facto" tour and business manager during this era, specializing in what he called "no bullshit C.O.D.", [Szwed (1998), p. 273] preferring to take cash before performing or delivering records.

In early 1971 Sun Ra was artist-in-residence at University of California, Berkeley, teaching a course called "The Black Man In the Cosmos". Rather few students enrolled but the classes were often full of curious persons 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, the Book of the Dead, Alexander Hislop's "The Two Babylons", The Book of Oahspe and assorted volumes concerning Egyptian hieroglyphs, African American folklore, and other topics.

In 1971 Sun Ra fulfilled a long-standing desire by performing with the Arkestra at ancient Egyptian pyramids.

In 1972 San Francisco public TV station KQED producer John Coney, producer Jim Newman, and screen writer Joshua Smith worked with Sun Ra to produce a 30-minute part-fiction, part-documentary film, entitled "Space Is the Place", featuring Sun Ra's Arkestra and filmed in Golden Gate Park. On May 20 1978 Sun Ra and the Arkestra appeared on "Saturday Night Live".

In the mid-1970s the Arkestra would sometimes play for free, outdoors in a Germantown park near their Philadelphia home, on a Saturday afternoon. Sometimes at their mid 1970s shows in Philadelphia nightclubs, someone would stand at the back of the room, selling stacks of unmarked LPs in plain white sleeves, pressed from recordings of the band's live performances (including one Halloween show where the salesman was dressed as a golden alien, and the LPs included a cover arrangement of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"). The Arkestra continued their touring and recording through the 1980s and into the 1990s, and Sun Ra became a fixture in Philadelphia, appearing semi-regularly on WXPN radio, giving lectures to community groups, or haunting the city's libraries.

Even after a stroke in 1990, Sun Ra kept composing, performing, and leading the Arkestra. Late in his career, Sun Ra opened a few concerts for New York-based rock group Sonic Youth. Eventually, Sun Ra grew too ill to perform and tour, and he entrusted Gilmore with leading the Arkestra. Gilmore himself was frail due to emphysema, and when he died, Allen took over leadership of the Arkestra. Sun Ra went back to Birmingham and reconnected with his sister whom he had rarely seen for nearly 40 years. He contracted pneumonia, died in Birmingham on May 30 1993, and was buried at the Elmwood Cemetery. According to the hospital, he had also been affected by circulatory system problems and numerous strokes. The small footstone read only "Sonny Blount (aka [sic] Le Son'y [sic] Ra)" [Szwed (1998), p. 382] shortly before his death.

The Arkestra continues

Following Sun Ra's death, the Arkestra was led by tenor saxophonist John Gilmore. Following Gilmore's death, the group has performed under the direction of alto saxophonist Marshall Allen, who celebrated his 80th birthday on stage during Arkestra performances at the Vox Populi gallery in Philadelphia and the Vision Festival in New York City. In the summer of 2004 the Arkestra became the first American jazz band to perform in Tuva, playing five sets at the Ustuu-Huree Festival. [cite news|first=Nicole|last=Schuman|title=Scott balances careers as academic, musician|url=http://www.buffalo.edu/reporter/vol36/vol36n7/articles/ReynoldScott.html|work=University at Buffalo Reporter|publisher=University at Buffalo, The State University of New York|date=2004-10-14|accessdate=2008-05-31] As of May 2008, the Arkestra continues to tour and perform, with captain Marshall Allen celebrating his 84th birthday on stage at New York City's Sullivan Hall.

Music

Sun Ra's piano technique touched on many styles: his youthful fascination with boogie woogie, stride piano and blues, a sometimes refined touch reminiscent of Count Basie or Ahmad Jamal, and angular phrases in the style of Thelonious Monk or brutal, percussive attacks like Cecil Taylor. Often overlooked is the range of influences from classical music—Sun Ra cited Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Schoenberg and Shostakovich as his favorite composers for the piano. [Szwed (1998), p. 28]

As a synthesizer and electric keyboard player, Sun Ra ranks among one of the earliest and most radical pioneers. By the mid-1950s, he used a variety of electric keyboards, and almost immediately, he exploited their potential perhaps more than anyone, sometimes modifying them himself to produce sounds rarely if ever heard before. His live albums from the late 1960s and early 1970s feature some of the noisiest, most bizarre keyboard work ever recorded. Sun Ra's music can be roughly divided into three phases, but his records and performances were full of surprises.

Chicago phase

The first period occurred in the 1950s when Sun Ra's music evolved from big band 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's, Count Basie's, or other important swing music ensembles. However, there was a strong influence from post-swing styles like bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, and touches of the exotic and hints of the experimentalism that would dominate his later music. Notable Sun Ra albums from the 1950s include "Sun Ra Visits Planet Earth", "Interstellar Low Ways", "Super-Sonic Jazz", "We Travel the Spaceways", "The Nubians of Plutonia" and "Jazz In Silhouette".

Ronnie Boykins, 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") 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. Recordings of this era began to utilize new technological possibilities such as extensive use of tape delay systems to assemble spatial sound pieces which are far removed from earlier compositions such as "Saturn". Recordings and live performances often featured passages for unusual instrumental combinations and passages of collective playing which point towards free improvisation—in fact, it is often difficult to tell where the compositions end and the improvisations begin.

In this era Sun Ra began conducting using hand and body gestures. This system would inspire cornetist Butch Morris, who would later develop 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." [cite journal|last=Doerschuk|first=Bob|year=1987|month=January|title=Sun Ra|journal=Keyboard|volume=13|issue=1|pages=p. 65]

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 multireedists, 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 synthesizers and other various electronic keyboards; he was given a prototype Minimoog by its inventor, Robert Moog.

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", "Secrets of the Sun" and "Other Planes of There."

Philadelphia phase

During their third period, beginning in the 1970s and onward, Sun Ra and the Arkestra settled down into a relatively conventional sound, often incorporating swing standards, though 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, all about jazz" he rapped, framing the inclusion of pieces by Fletcher Henderson and Jelly Roll Morton.

In the 1970s Sun Ra took a liking to the films of Walt Disney. 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 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. 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. The album "Atlantis" can be considered the landmark that led into his 1970s era.

Musicians

Certainly dozens of musicians—perhaps hundreds—passed through Sun Ra's bands over the years. Some stayed with him for decades, while others made 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 Juini Booth, himself a member of the Arkestra, Sun Ra would not confront any musician whose performance he was unsatisfied with. Instead, Sun Ra would simply gather the entire Arkestra minus the offending musician, and skip town, leaving the fired musician stranded. After repeated instances of US jazz musicians becoming stranded in foreign countries, Sun Ra's unique method of dismissal became a diplomatic liability for the United States. The U.S. State Department was compelled to tell Sun Ra to bring any fired musicians stateside rather than leaving them stranded.Fact|date=December 2007

The following is a partial list of musical collaborators and the eras in which they played with Sun Ra and/or the Arkestra:

*Marshall Allen, saxophone (1950s–present)
*Ronnie Boykins, double bass (1950s–1973)
*Arthur 'Juini' Booth, double bass
*Darryl Brown, drums (1970–1972)
*Owen "Fiidla" Brown, violin, dance, vocals (1987–1990s and later appearances)
*Tony Bunn, electric bass (1976)
*Francisco Mora Catlett (musician), drums (1973–1980)
*Don Cherry, pocket trumpet (1983–1990)
*Damon Choice, vibraphone (late 1960s–1990s)
*Phil Cohran, trumpet (1959–1961)
*Joey DeStefano, alto saxophone (1968–1969)
*Eddie Gale, trumpet (1960s)
*John Gilmore, saxophone (1950s–1990s)
*Tommy "Bugs" Hunter, drums, sound engineer
*James Jacson, bassoon
*Donald Jones, drums (1973–1974)
*Wayne Kramer, guitar (2006) [cite web|url=http://www.waynekramer.com/wk/reports.cfm|title=My Night as a Tone Scientist|accessdate=2008-05-31|last=Kramer|first=Wayne|authorlink=Wayne Kramer (guitarist)|date=2006-10-23|work=The Kramer Report]
*Eloe Omoe, bass clarinet
*Taylor Richardson, guitar (1979-1983)
*Pat Patrick, saxophone (1950s–1990s)
*Julian Priester, trombone (1950s, 1980s–1990s)
*Rollo Radford, bass
*Michael Ray, trumpet (1978–present)
*Pharoah Sanders, saxophone
*Alan Silva, double bass, cello, violin (early 1970s)
*June Tyson, singer, violin

Philosophy

Sun Ra's world view was often described as a philosophy, but he rejected this term, describing his own manner as an "equation"—he claimed 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 think his world view was naïve or comprised of nonsensical new-age platitudes. 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,

Sun Ra presents a unified conception, incorporating music, myth, and performance into his multi-leveled equations. Every aspect of the Sun Ra experience, from business practices like Saturn Records to published collections of poetry to his 35-year career in music, is a manifestation of his equations. Sun Ra seeks to elevate humanity beyond their current earthbound state, tied to outmoded conceptions of life and death when the potential future of immortality awaits them. As Hall has put it, 'In this era of 'practical' things men ridicule even the existence of God. They scoff at goodness while they ponder with befuddled minds the phantasmagoria of materiality. They have forgotten the path which leads beyond the stars.'

He drew on sources as diverse as the Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, channeling, numerology, Freemasonry, and black nationalism. Sun Ra's system had distinct Gnostic leanings [Szwed (1998), p. 297] 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 would often re-arrange and re-word Biblical passages (along with re-working 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 before joining Sun Ra and identified strong similarities between Zen teachings and practices (particularly Zen koans) and Ra's use of "non sequiturs" and seemingly absurd replies to questions. [Szwed (1998), p. 385] Drummer Art Jenkins admitted that Sun Ra's "nonsense" sometimes troubled his thoughts for days until inspiring a sort of paradigm shift, or profound change in outlook. [Szwed (1998), p. 387] Drummer Andrew Cyrille 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." [Szwed (1998), pp. 386–387]

Some of Sun Ra's songs with words featured lyrics that although simple, were inspirational and philosophical. The most famous example was "Space is the Place!". Another example was the song that went, "You made a mistake. You did something wrong. Make another mistake, and do something right!". Sometimes (typically at the end of a set) the entire Arkestra would snake out through the audience, playing and chanting something like this. Sun Ra even came up once, behind a frightened young audience member, grabbed him in a bear hug, and whispered this in his ear, while the whole band chanted and played along, in a circle around his table, with the rest of the audience watching on in amusement. (1978, in a performance in a small short-lived nightclub on City Line Avenue in Philadelphia)

un Ra and black culture

According to Szwed [Szwed (1998), p. 311] 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, and 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 [manipulating black and white people] and looking, enjoying itself up in a reserved seat, wondering, "I wonder when they're going to wake up. [Szwed (1998), p. 313]

Influence and legacy

Many of Sun Ra's innovations remain important and groundbreaking: "Ra was one of the first jazz leaders to use two basses, to employ the electric bass, to play electronic keyboards, to use extensive percussion and polyrhythms, 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 60s)."

George Clinton of P-funk fame drew inspiration from Sun Ra; see P-Funk mythology. He once declared in an interview, "Yeah, Sun Ra's out to lunch... same place I eat at!" [cite news|first=W. Kim|last=Heron|title=Space is still the place|url=http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=10582|work=Metro Times|date=2007-06-06|accessdate=2008-05-30]

He was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1979.

Video

Sun Ra and his Arkestra were the subject of a few documentary films, notably Robert Mugge's "A Joyful Noise" (1980), which interspersed performances and rehearsals with Sun Ra's commentary on various subjects ranging from today's youth to his own place in the cosmos. There is also a feature film entitled "Space Is the Place" from 1974 which stars Sun Ra and his band who play themselves. The soundtrack, also by Sun Ra, is available on CD.

More recently Don Letts' "Sun Ra—Brother from Another Planet" reuses some of Mugge's material and includes some additional interviews.

Writing

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.

Discography

ee also

*List of experimental big bands

Notes

References

*cite book|last=Szwed|first=John F.|title=Space Is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra|date=August 21, 1998|publisher=Da Capo Press|isbn=978-0306808555
*cite book|last=Ra|first=Sun|coauthors=Wolf, James L.; Geerken, Helmut|title=Sun Ra: The Immeasurable Equation: The Collected Poetry and Prose|date=September 1, 2006|publisher=Waitawhile|isbn=978-3-8334-2659-9
*cite book|last=Ra|first=Sun|editor=Elms, Anthony; Corbett, John|title=The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets|date=August 1, 2006|publisher=WhiteWalls|location=Chicago, Illinois|isbn=978-0945323075

External links

* [http://www.thesunraarkestra.com/ Official website of the Sun Ra Arkestra under the direction of Marshall Allen]
* [http://www.plonsey.com/beanbenders/SUNRA-interview.html Extensive 1988 interview with Sun Ra]

Persondata
NAME=Ra, Sun
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=Ra, Le Sony'r; Blount, Sonny; Blount, Herman Poole
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Jazz composer, bandleader
DATE OF BIRTH=May 22, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH=Birmingham, Alabama, United States
DATE OF DEATH=May 30, 1993
PLACE OF DEATH=Birmingham, Alabama, United States