Produced by Tom Wilson, the same man who also helmed recordings by the Mothers of Invention, Bob Dylan and the Velvet Underground, The Futuristic Sounds Of Sun Ra may belie its title when described as ...

Few musicians have been as delightfully and fascinatingly weird as Sun Ra. He was born Herman Poole Blount, changed his name to honor the Egyptian god of the sun, believed he was an angelic being from ...

Discover the extraordinary life of poet, philosopher and music visionary Sun Ra. With his ever-evolving collective, the Sun Ra Arkestra, he self-produced more than 200 albums, stretching the ...

He was a solar flare, a surge of energy that rocketed across great distances and divides, bestowing all he encountered with unforgettable memories and disrupting radio transmissions. Science-fiction, ...

Sun Ra has a way with words – a strange celestial way. Like the rest of us, he uses them to communicate. But what he communicates can sound outlandish, even alien to human ears. He took deadpan ...

Questlove, Dawn Richard and a range of other musicians, writers and critics share their favorites from the experimental pianist, organist and bandleader’s wide-ranging catalog. By Marcus J. Moore ...

A veteran of Sun Ra’s band of astral travelers, saxophonist and bandleader Marshall Allen carries on the jazz legend’s legacy of uplifting spirits and upending musical expectations. A lovingly ...

Bandleader Knoell Scott leads the Sun Ra Arkestra, performing at SFJazz on July 31, 2025. Photo by Frankie Solinsky Duryea. The Sun Ra Arkestra began the first of four San Francisco shows at SFJazz’s ...

I have been listening to the music of Sun Ra since the mid-1970s. His Arkestra performed somewhere in Washington, DC right around that time. I didn’t attend the show (I was broke), but a few friends ...

Sun Ra and His Arkestra at Balloon Theatre, Cairo, 1971. (Hartmut Geerken) By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs ...

From swing to bebop to free jazz, Sun Ra bridged myriad musical styles to form his own avant-garde sound. With his ever-evolving collective, the Sun Ra Arkestra, he stretched the boundaries of jazz ...