Sun Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, legal name Le Sony'r Ra; May 22, 1914 - May 30, 1993) was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet 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. Born and raised in Alabama, Blount eventually became involved in the Chicago jazz scene during the 1940s. He soon abandoned his birth name, taking the name Sun Ra (after Ra, the Egyptian God of the Sun) and developing a complex persona and mythology that would make him a pioneer of Afrofuturism: he claimed he was an alien from Saturn on a mission to preach peace, and throughout his life he consistently denied any ties to his prior identity.

After the move to New York, Sun Ra and company plunged headlong into the experimentalism that they had only hinted at in Chicago. The music was often extremely loud and the Arkestra grew to include multiple drummers and percussionists. In recordings of this era, Ra began to use new technologies--such as extensive use of tape delay--to assemble spatial sound pieces that were far removed from earlier compositions such as Saturn. Recordings and live performances often featured passages for unusual instrumental combinations, and passages of collective playing that incorporated free improvisation. It is often difficult to tell where compositions end and improvisations begin.  In this era, Sun Ra began conducting using hand and body gestures. This system inspired cornetist Butch Morris, who later developed his own more highly refined way to conduct improvisers.  Though often associated with avant-garde jazz, Sun Ra did not believe his work could be classified as "free music": "I have to make sure that every note, every nuance, is correct... If you want to call it that, spell it p-h-r-e, because ph is a definite article and re is the name of the sun. So I play phre music - music of the sun."  Seeking to broaden his compositional possibilities, Sun Ra insisted all band members double on various percussion instruments - predating world music by drawing on various ethnic musical forms - and most saxophonists became multireedists, adding instruments such as flutes, oboes, or clarinets to their arsenals. In this era, Sun Ra was among the first of any musicians to make extensive and pioneering use of synthesizers and other various electronic keyboards; he was given a prototype Minimoog by its inventor, Robert Moog. According to the Bob Moog Foundation: "Sun Ra first met Robert Moog after Downbeat journalist and Sun Ra acquaintance Tam Fiofori arranged for a visit to Moog's factory in Trumansburg in the Fall of 1969....it was during this visit that Moog loaned Sun Ra a prototype Minimoog (Model B), several months before the commercial instrument (Model D) was introduced in March 1970. Ra immediately added the instrument to his repertoire of keyboards, later acquired a second, and featured the Minimoog prominently on many of his recordings of the early 1970s."  Notable titles from this period include The Magic City, Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy, When Sun Comes Out, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One, Atlantis, Secrets of the Sun and Other Planes of There.

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