‘Today is the centenary of a bandleader whose artistic legacy, within and beyond jazz, is as deep and as strong as that of Duke Ellington and Count Basie, a musician who took a name that bespeaks similarly grand ambitions and visions: Sun Ra. Ra was a crucial creator of what’s commonly called free jazz, and, unlike his swing-era predecessors, he found himself in the position of many modernists, both musical and otherwise: his work has eluded popularity. His influence and authority, even now, twenty-one years after his death, far outshine his name recognition, but his music remains among the essential experiences and representations of his times.
A musical prodigy in his home town of Birmingham, Alabama, Ra, who was born Herman Blount, had a firm footing in traditional jazz. He moved to Chicago in 1946 and worked as a pianist and arranger with the Fletcher Henderson band, but by that time he was already pursuing advanced musical and philosophical ideas. Fascinated with outer space, he changed his name—legally, to Le Son’y Ra—and worked out a literary vision of a quasi-scientific utopia based on a mythic past, which he ultimately realized in music.’ (New Yorker).
Related articles
