Sun Ra | Artist
Herman Poole Blount aka Le Sony'r Ra was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player and poet born 1914 in Birmingham Alabama. As a child, Blount was a skilled pianist. By the age of 11 or 12, he was composing and sight reading music. His birthplace, Birmingham was an important stop for touring musicians and he saw prominent musicians such as Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, and Fats Waller. In his teenage years, Blount demonstrated prodigious musical talent: many times, according to acquaintances, he went to big band performances and then produced full transcriptions of the bands' songs from memory. By his mid-teens, he was performing semi-professionally as a solo pianist, or as a member of various ad hoc jazz and R&B groups. Sun Ra was known for his experimental music, "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. Blount became involved in the Chicago jazz scene during the late 1940s and 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 on a mission to preach peace, he developed a mythical persona and an idiosyncratic credo that made him a pioneer of Afrofuturism. 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 music echoed the entire history of jazz, from ragtime and early New Orleans hot jazz, to swing music, bebop, free jazz and fusion. His compositions ranged from keyboard solos to works for big bands of over 30 musicians, along with electronic excursions, songs, chants, percussion pieces, and anthems. Though his mainstream success was limited, 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 and modal jazz and his early use of electronic keyboards and synthesizers. Over his career, he recorded dozens of singles and over 100 full-length albums, comprising well over 1,000 songs, making him one of the most prolific recording artists of the 20th century. Standout albums include Jazz in Silhouette (1959), Angels and Demons at Play (1965), The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra (1965), The Lady With the Golden Stockings - rissued as The Nubians of Plutonia (1966), The Magic City (1966), Space is the Place (1973), Lanquidity (1978), God Is More Than Love Can Ever Be (1979), Sleeping Beauty (1979), Strange Celestial Road (1980), plus the live album Disco 3000 (1978), and compilation albums Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy and Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow (1992), and Singles Vol. 1 1952-1961 (2016). Ra 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, Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said: "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". Sun Ra had a stroke 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. He died on May 30, 1993, aged 79 earth years.
Artist Website: sunraarkestra.com
Featured Albums: Sun Ra
Related Artists: Sun Ra Arkestra, Dan & Dale
