Sun Ra, 1914-1993,
African-American jazz composer, bandleader, and keyboard player, b.
Birmingham, Al., as Herman Poole Blount. Sun Ra was a leading creator of
avant-garde jazz from the ‘60s through the ‘90s. For decades
he led his “Arkestra,” an ensemble with a group of core
musicians who lived and worked together. The group was known for its highly
theatrical performances and promotion of a “cosmic” philosophy
steeped in Afrofuturism
. Blount was a childhood prodigy as a pianist and arranger, and
began performing while still in high school. After serving as a
conscientious objector in World War II, he relocated to Chicago in 1945
where he formed his first bands. In 1961, he moved to New York City where
his group became a major force in the burgeoning avant-garde jazz and
performance scenes of the day. His musicians began appearing in elaborate
costumes that drew on Egyptian and space age motifs, with a background of
projected light patterns and videos created by what Sun Ra called the
“Outer Space Visual Communicator.” The group relocated to a
communal home in Philadelphia in 1968 and continued to tour and record,
mostly on their own private label. Sun Ra drew on a wide variety of
influences from big-band jazz to bebop and modal jazz to avant-garde and
experimental music and, in later years, the music from the films of Walt
Disney. He
retired due to illness in 1992, but the band has continued under saxophonist
Marshall Allen’s leadership, a long-time member of the group.
See his Sun Ra, The Immeasurable Equation (2005), The
Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner
Leaflets (2005); biography by J. Szwed (1998).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
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