Sun Ra-whose given name was Herman Poole Blount-was born on May 22, 1914 in Birmingham, Alabama. Known as Sonny, he was reportedly a child prodigy on piano, developing precociously as well as a sight-reader, composer and arranger. He was most stongly influenced by blues, boogie-woogie and big band music, but as early as the early 1940′s had an interest in electronic music and keyboards.
In 1946, he moved to Chicago and played many different kinds of piano jobs-from working in a trio including violinist Stuff Smith to backing blues man Wynonie Harris, to accompanying strippers in burlesque cafes. He then began gaining recognition as an arranger for one of his big band idols. Fletcher Henderson, while working at the legendary Club De Lisa. His move to Chicago also developed and broadened his spiritual and political philosophy, as Chicago was the home to many of the black fringe movements of the time, such as the Nation of Islam, led by Elijah Mohammed. Some have argued that the changing of his name from Sonny to ‘Le Sony’r Ra’-shortened to Sun Ra in 1952-was an effort to drop his slave name Blount in a similar fashion to that of Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali. More likely, the name change was the result of a life transforming celestial out-of-body experience he had roughly a decade earlier, where he believed he had been teleported to Saturn where he had been re-born as Sun Ra. His interest in the many Egyptian styled buildings in Chicago, in Afro-Futurism, and becoming a self-styled mystic who would spread peace around the world through music all contributed to the highly colorful persona presented by himself and his band members, who became known as the ‘Arkestra’.
The Arkestra began in the early 1950′s initially influenced by be-bop, big-band, R & B and other trends.Many sideman who would work with him for years began with him at this time, including Saxophonist’s John Gilmore, Marshall Allen and Pat Patrick and Bassist Ronnie Boykins.
As for his participation in Free Jazz, it seems to have occred almost by accident. By the late 50′s, when he began recording for Alton Abraham’s Saturn label, the band had become concerned with much impressionistic use of percussion. The Rough Guide Notes:
‘Around this time…he began to forego his composed themes and, in one of the earliest responses to the idea of Free Jazz, he allowed the moods which he prescribed to be created entirely through solo and group improvisation. This was the style for which he finally gained widespread recognition.’
When I suggest by accident, I mean he was not consciously concerned with an overall upheaval of previous jazz forms as were Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor. In fact, most unlike Taylor, Sun Ra periodically returned to traditional jazz forms throughout his career.
As with other free jazzmen, his music was entirely his own, although it was driven by the above mentioned spiritual ne supernatural changes. It is also the opinion of this programmer that Sun Ra was one of several pianist’s who were influenced by Duke Ellington (Taylor was another). Again, the Rough Guide notes about Ellington:
‘(He absorbed) the utterances of his hired soloists into his own compositional expression so that the two frequently became indistinguishable…the small group of pianists who have learned from Duke’s use of the instrument have perpetuated the spirit of Ellington more meaningfully than those who try to copy his composition and orchestration.’
In other words, what I am suggesting is that bky saying he let the allowed the moods which he prescribed to be created entirely through solo and group improvisation is tantamount to Dukes absorbing the utterances of his hired soloist’s, albeit in reverse, and that Sun Ra’s accomplishment of this is as a result of his having learned from Duke both as a pianist and as a band leader. This might also be why he is more like Charles Mingus or Rahsaan Roland Kirk in that he is a leader/innovator who embodied the whole history of Jazz in his work, a la Ellington; That he employed free improvistion as he saw fit, which would not make him a free jazzmen in the strictest sense.
Sun Ra was also a pioneeer of electronic keyboards and bass a good 15-20 years earlier than the use of those instruments in so-called fusion music. Again, the end results were much more spiritually driven in his effort to create other-worldly sounds. While he became enormously influential on the multi-colored performances of Jazz and non-Jazz groups like The Art Ensemble of Chicago and George Clinton of Parliment, he is not given enouygh credit for his use fo 20th century European Classical Electronic music and the blending of such with African music.
Sun Ra was a unique and largely original performer in Jazz.
One thing I do find curious, though, is why, in 1992, with his health failing, he chose to return to the birthplace of Sonny Bount-Birmingham, Ala, after acknowledging the person he had become was ‘born’ on Saturn. He died on May 30th 1993 at the age of 79, but his music lives on as the living members of the Arkestra keep his spirit alive through their/his music
Reference Credits:
1) Wikipedia, the On-Line Encyclopedia
2) The Sun Ra Discography, compiled by Robert L Campbell
3) Jazz: The Rough Guide by Ian Carr, Digby Fairweather and Brian Priestly, Rough Guide Publishing
4) The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock ‘n Roll, 1995.