Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo performing in 2005, from left to right: Hubley, McNew, and Kaplan
Background information
Origin	Hoboken, New Jersey, United States
Genres	Indie rock, experimental rock, noise pop, dream pop
Years active	1984–present
Labels	Matador, Bar/None, City Slang, Alias, Arts & Crafts México
Associated acts	Dump, Condo Fucks
Website	www.yolatengo.com
Members
Georgia Hubley Ira Kaplan James McNew
Past members
Dave Schramm Stephan Wichnewski Dave Rick Mike Lewis

Yo La Tengo, sometimes abbreviated as YLT, is an American alternative rock band formed in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1984. Since 1992, the lineup has consisted of Ira Kaplan (guitars, piano, vocals), Georgia Hubley (drums, piano, vocals), and James McNew (bass, vocals).

Despite achieving limited mainstream success, Yo La Tengo has been called "the quintessential critics' band" and maintains a strong cult following.^[1] The band is renowned for its encyclopedic repertoire of cover songs both in live performance and on record.

History[link]

Formation and early history: 1984–1985[link]

Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley formed the band as a husband/wife duo in 1984. They chose the name "Yo La Tengo" (Spanish for "I have it"; referring to a female-gender object or person, also "I've Got Her") in an effort to avoid any connotations in English. The name came from a baseball anecdote. During the 1962 season, New York Mets center fielder Richie Ashburn and Venezuelan shortstop Elio Chacón found themselves colliding in the outfield. When Ashburn went for a catch, he would scream, "I got it! I got it!" only to run into Chacón, who spoke only Spanish. Ashburn learned to yell, "¡Yo la tengo! ¡Yo la tengo!" instead. In a later game, Ashburn happily saw Chacón backing off. He relaxed, positioned himself to catch the ball, and was instead run over by left fielder Frank Thomas, who understood no Spanish and had missed a team meeting that proposed using the words "¡Yo la tengo!" as a way to avoid outfield collisions.^[2] After getting up, Thomas asked Ashburn, "What the heck is a Yellow Tango?".^[3]

They placed an advertisement to recruit other musicians who shared their love for bands such as The Soft Boys, Mission of Burma, and Arthur Lee's Love.^[1] The group's debut recording was a 7" single entitled "The River of Water" backed with a cover of Arthur Lee's "A House Is Not a Motel" released in late 1985 with Dave Schramm on lead guitar and Dave Rick on bass. After recording "Private Doberman" for inclusion on a Coyote Records compilation entitled Luxury Condos Coming to Your Neighborhood, Rick left the band and was replaced by Mike Lewis, the founding bass player of Boston garage-punk bands DMZ and Lyres, who was also a member of Brooklyn garage rock band The A-Bones throughout his tenure in YLT.

Early releases: 1986–1989[link]

In 1986, Yo La Tengo released their first LP, Ride the Tiger on Coyote Records. Produced by former Mission of Burma bassist Clint Conley who also took over bass duties on three songs, the album "marked Yo La Tengo as a band with real potential" according to reviewer Mark Deming.^[4] Kaplan was credited as "naive guitar" on the sleeve, and in the liner notes for the 1993 reissue of the album on City Slang Records, went so far as to say "Dave's guitar playing is inarguably the best thing about the record."

Schramm and Lewis left the band after the album's release, with Kaplan subsequently taking on the role of lead guitar and Stephan Wichnewski joining to play bass. The group's next album New Wave Hot Dogs (1987) sold poorly, but in the words of Mark Deming, "was a quantum leap over the sound of their debut."^[1]

The release of President Yo La Tengo in 1989 did much to establish the band's reputation among rock critics including Robert Christgau who praised the "mysterioso guitar hook" in the first song titled Barnaby, Hardly Working.^[5] Produced by Gene Holder of The dB's, the album was the band's last release on Coyote. Despite the positive reception of the album, sales were still poor and Wichnewski left the band not long after. Hubley and Kaplan carried on as a duo and began playing two-electric-guitar shows. Kaplan, though typically a pragmatist, started carrying a bug trapped in amber in his pocket for luck.

Bar/None and Alias Records: 1990–1992[link]

Yo La Tengo reunited with Dave Schramm in 1990 to record Fakebook, an album of mostly acoustic tunes, including covers of Cat Stevens, Gene Clark, The Kinks, Daniel Johnston, among others, with five original songs by the band themselves, including an acoustic version of Barnaby Hardly Working. Again produced by Gene Holder, the album's folk sound was a change of pace for the band. Years later, Kaplan recalled that the album was "just me and Georgia looking for an excuse to record with Dave Schramm and Al Greller" who played guitar and double bass on the album, respectively.^[6]

In 1991, with Dave Schramm in tow, Yo La Tengo collaborated with Daniel Johnston on the song "Speeding Motorcycle" which was released as a single. The band also released a 7" single on Bar/None Records with the song "Walking Away from You" backed with a cover of Beat Happening's "Cast a Shadow." Gene Holder produced the single and played the bass. The That Is Yo La Tengo EP released later that year included some tracks that would end up on the group's next LP.

After the release of That Is Yo La Tengo, James McNew (who also records under the solo moniker Dump) began playing bass with the band, forming the trio that continues to make up the band today. According to McNew,

The band recorded May I Sing with Me in Boston with Holder producing and Lou Giordano engineering.^[8] The album was released on Alias Records in 1992. Two of the album's eleven songs ("Swing for Life" and "Five-Cornered Drone") were carried over from the That Is Yo La Tengo EP and feature Holder on bass. The Upside-Down EP was released on CD in support of the album, rounding out the band's releases on Alias.

Early Matador period: 1993–2000[link]

In 1993, Yo La Tengo began their partnership with Matador Records, releasing a 7" and CD5 of the song "Shaker" which the band recorded with John Siket in New Jersey. The following LP, 1993's Painful was also the beginning of the band's fruitful creative partnership with producer Roger Moutenot, who has produced all of their subsequent albums. Painful is the first Yo La Tengo to feature James McNew on every song. Ira Kaplan explains:

Rob Sheffield, writing in The New Rolling Stone Album Guide remarked that McNew "became an essential part of the sound on Painful, the 1993 album that kept every promise Yo La Tengo ever made and blew their previous highlights away."^[10] Critical reaction was quite positive, with reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine calling it "a subtly addicting album."^[11] Robert Christgau also praised the group once again, writing in his review that Yo La Tengo is "always friendly. This is not the forbidding experimentation of an aspiring vanguard. This is the fooling around of folks who like to go out on Saturday night and make some noise—and then go home humming it."^[5] The band released Electr-O-Pura in 1995 to similar acclaim. For the first time, all songs were credited to the band as a whole rather than individual members; this became the norm for all future releases.

The band's 1997 LP I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One synthesized the group's eclectic combination of folk, punk rock, shoegazing, long instrumental noise-jams, and electronic music into a sprawling, multi-faceted style. Critical reaction was extremely positive; Pitchfork awarded the album a 9.7 out of 10,^[12] and Allmusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that it was "arguably Yo La Tengo's finest and most coherent album to date."^[13] Kaplan recalled a turning point in the band's musical progression:

With their critical reputation higher than ever before, the band toured extensively and their fan base continued to grow. In 1998, they collaborated with Jad Fair and released the album Strange but True to mixed reviews. The band entered the studio again in late 1999 to record their ninth LP. And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out was released in February 2000 to a warm reception. The album features some intimate songs with hushed, varied instrumentation and includes the 19 minute epic "Night Falls On Hoboken".

Continued acclaim and soundtrack work: 2001–present[link]

In 2001, Yo La Tengo recorded an instrumental score for eight short undersea documentaries by Jean Painlevé, entitled The Sounds of the Sounds of Science. The program debuted at the San Francisco Film Festival and has been performed live approximately twelve times. The band also released an EP with covers of Sun Ra's "Nuclear War" in late 2002.

The band's tenth LP, Summer Sun, was released in 2003. Although the album received generally favorable reviews, some critics found the album's quiet atmosphere "underwhelming."^[14] Others criticized the band for a perceived lack of invention.^[15] When asked about the album's quiet nature, Kaplan stated,

Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo playing in Battery Park, New York City, July 4, 2005

Their eleventh LP, I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass, was released in 2006 to universal acclaim.^[17] Informed by their soundtrack work, the arrangements included more strings and horns than any of the band's previous albums. Kaplan told an interviewer: "I think we gained an element of comfort with using that kind of instrumentation, and it became something we could draw on for our other songs."^[18] In addition, the album was book-ended with two guitar jams lasting over ten minutes each.

In 2006, the band released Yo La Tengo Is Murdering the Classics, a compilation of their live impromptu cover-song performances on the New Jersey freeform radio station, WFMU. As part of the station's annual fundraising marathon, listeners who call in to pledge money to the station may request a favorite which the band will then perform on the spot. In late 2007, the band began performing acoustically for "The Freewheelin' Yo La Tengo" tour. Audiences were encouraged to request songs and ask questions which, Kaplan stated, the band tried to answer "in a strategic manner so that the answers to the questions will lead to the next song."^[6]

In March 2008, Yo La Tengo performed under the alias "Condo Fucks" at Brooklyn's Magnetic Field.^[19] As Condo Fucks, the band released an album of cover songs, Fuckbook, on Matador in March 2009.^[20] On June 4, Matador announced a new Yo La Tengo album called Popular Songs.^[21]

Popular Songs, the band's 12th album, was released on September 8, 2009. The album was recorded in the band's rehearsal space in New Jersey and features two songs with elaborate string sections (composed by jazz composer Richard Evans).^[22] It entered the Billboard chart at No. 58, the highest entry of the band's career thus far.^[23]

In 2009, Yo La Tengo contributed to Stroke - Songs For Chris Knox, a tribute album for New Zealand rock and roll musician Chris Knox who suffered a stroke in June 2009. Yo La Tengo covered Knox's song "Coloured". All proceeds from the album go towards Knox's recovery.^[24] Also in 2009, Yo La Tengo contributed a cover of the song "Gentle Hour" to the AIDS benefit album, Dark Was the Night, produced by the Red Hot Organization.

Preceding their latest album Popular Songs, Yo La Tengo released an EP entitled Here to Fall Remixes in the summer of 2010. Remixes of their single Here to Fall were done by De La Soul, RJD2, and Pete Rock. This was Yo La Tengo's third out-of-the-box remix EP in 14 years, following the Autumn Sweater and Danelectro Remix EPs.^[25]

In 2012 Yo La Tengo recorded a version of "I Saw the Light (Todd Rundgren song)" for a fund raising cd titled "Super Hits Of The Seventies" for radio station WFMU.^[26]

Discography[link]

Studio albums

• Ride the Tiger (1986)
• New Wave Hot Dogs (1987)
• President Yo La Tengo (1989)
• Fakebook (1990)
• May I Sing with Me (1992)
• Painful (1993)
• Electr-O-Pura (1995)
• I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One (1997)
• And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out (2000); US No. 138
• Summer Sun (2003); US No. 115
• I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass (2006); US No. 66
• Popular Songs (2009); US No. 58

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Yo La Tengo

• Official site
• Matador Records' official site
• Yo La Tengo discography at Discogs
• Yo La Tengo at Last.fm
• Music Guide to Yo La Tengo at pontone.pl
• Bar/None Records Yo La Tengo page

Today Is the Day
Background information
Origin	Nashville, Tennessee, United States
Genres	Noise rock
Years active	1992–present
Labels	Amphetamine Reptile Relapse SuperNova Black Market Activities
Associated acts	Lethargy, Mastodon, Amber Asylum, Lamb of God, Circle of Dead Children, Wetnurse
Website	supernovarecords.net
Members
Steve Austin Ryan Jones Curran Reynolds
Past members
Brad Elrod Mike Herrell Scott Wexton Chris Reeser Mike Hyde Bill Kelliher Brann Dailor Chris Debari Michael Kilpatric John Gillis Jeff Lohrber Aaron Kotilainen Graham Leduc Derek Roddy John Judkins

Today Is the Day is an American noise rock band from Nashville, Tennessee. They have a diverse sound that includes influences from alternative rock, grindcore, and progressive rock among other genres. Lyrical themes include extreme violence, altered states of consciousness, personal struggles, depression, warfare and mental problems such as psychosis, among others.

Biography[link]

The band was founded by Steve Austin and Brad Elrod in Nashville, Tennessee in the early 1990s. The band released its debut EP, entitled How to Win Friends and Influence People, in 1992. This self-financed release garnered the attention of Amphetamine Reptile Records (AmRep) who signed the band (at this time consisting of Austin on vocals and guitar, Brad Elrod on drums, and Mike Herrell on bass guitar) in February 1993. The full-length Supernova was released later that year.^[1]

In September 1994, Today Is the Day saw its popularity in the metal underground increase with the release of their second album, entitled Willpower. That same year, Willpower was followed by the Clusterfuck '94 split EP with labelmates Chokebore and Guzzard. Today Is the Day also contributed to the tenth volume of AmRep's Dope Guns and Fucking in the Streets 7" series with Brainiac and Steel Pole Bath Tub.^[1]

Today Is the Day's self-titled album was released in March 1996. This album was the first of the band's releases recorded at Austin's own studio, Austin Enterprise, in Nashville. For this release, Steve Austin shifted the band's sound slightly and opted to replace bassist Mike Herrell with keyboardist Scott Wexton. Today Is the Day was the band's final recording for AmRep.^[1]

In 1997, Today Is the Day left AmRep and signed with Philadelphia-based metal label Relapse Records and released Temple of the Morning Star in September 1997. For this release, the band's lineup changed significantly, adding bassist and keyboardist Christopher Reeser and drummer Mike Hyde to the band. In addition to Temple of the Morning Star, Today Is the Day also contributed to the In These Black Days 7" series, released by Hydra Head Records, with their rendition of "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath", which can also be found as a secret track at the end of Temple of the Morning Star.^[1]

For Today Is the Day's August 1999 release, entitled In the Eyes of God, Reeser and Hyde were replaced with bassist Bill Kelliher and drummer Brann Dailor, formerly of Rochester, New York's Lethargy and current members of Atlanta, Georgia's Mastodon.^[2] This new lineup first appeared live at the Milwaukee Metalfest and the New England Metal and Hardcore Festival. Having moved to Massachusetts in 1998, this was the first Today Is the Day album to be recorded at Austin Enterprise's new location in Clinton, Massachusetts.^[1]

The years 2000 and 2001 were relatively quiet for Today Is the Day in terms of releasing new material. Live Till You Die was released in August 2000, and included live tracks recorded during the tours in support of Temple of the Morning Star and In the Eyes of God, covers of songs by The Beatles, Bad Company, and Chris Isaak, and various songs compiled from studio sessions held at Austin Enterprise during the late-1990s. In 2001, new Today Is the Day songs were released on splits with Metatron and 16, the first new material since 1999.^[1]

The new songs put out on the split releases later appeared on Today Is the Day's double album Sadness Will Prevail, released in 2002. This album kept with Steve Austin's habit of rotating band personnel, and Kelliher and Dailor were replaced by Chris Debari and Marshall Kilpatric, respectively. Today Is the Day also released their second live album, entitled Blue Blood, in 2002.^[1]

Today Is the Day returned in June 2004 with a new album entitled Kiss the Pig, which featured the debut of new drummer Mike Rosswog, previously of Circle of Dead Children. Rosswog replaced Anal Cunt's John Gillis, who performed live with the band in 2003. Kiss the Pig was the last album released by Today Is the Day on Relapse Records.^[1]

In December 2006 it was announced that former Hate Eternal drummer Derek Roddy had joined the band and would appear on their next studio album, Axis of Eden, released in 2007.^[3]

In April 2010, it was confirmed Today Is the Day would join former AmpRep label mates Melvins, Boss Hog, and others at Amphetamine Reptile's 25th Anniversary bash in Minneapolis on August 28, 2010.^[4]

In July 2010 Black Market Activities Records announced that they are welcoming Today Is The Day to its roster. Black Market Activities will release Today Is The Day’s ninth studio album in 2011.^[5]

SuperNova Records[link]

In 2006 Steve Austin launched his own record label, SuperNova Records, which was founded in order to properly release material by Today Is the Day, among others. As of April 2007, SuperNova has released DVDs of live Today Is the Day shows from 1995 and 1996, as well as reissuing a remastered version of their Willpower record, previously released on Amphetamine Reptile Records. The label also released a film Axis of Eden based on the album of the same name.^[6]

Members[link]

Current

• Steve Austin – lead vocals, guitars (since 1992)
• Ryan Jones – bass (since 2010)
• Curran Reynolds – drums, percussion (since 2010)

Former

• Brad Elrod – drums, percussion (1992–1996, 1998–1999)
• Mike Herrell – bass (1992–1996)
• Scott Wexton – keyboards (1996)
• Chris Reeser – bass, keyboards (1996–1998)
• Mike Hyde – drums, percussion (1997–1998)
• Bill Kelliher – bass (1999)
• Brann Dailor – drums, percussion (1999)
• Chris Debari – bass (2000–2008)
• Marshall Kilpatric – drums, percussion (2000–2002)
• John Gillis – drums, percussion (2002)
• Mike Rosswog – drums, percussion (2004, 2008)
• Jeff Lohrber – drums, percussion (2005)
• Aaron Kotilainen – keyboards (2005)
• Graham Leduc – drums, percussion (2006)
• Derek Roddy – drums, percussion (2007–2008)
• John Judkins – bass (2008–2010)
• Julien Granger – drums (2009–2010)

Guest appearances[link]

• Seth Putnam – vocals on Sadness Will Prevail
• Kris Force – violin on Sadness Will Prevail
• Jackie Gratz – cello on Sadness Will Prevail

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

• Supernova (1993), Amphetamine Reptile
• Willpower (1994), Amphetamine Reptile
• Today Is the Day (1996), Amphetamine Reptile
• Temple of the Morning Star (1997), Relapse
• In the Eyes of God (1999), Relapse
• Sadness Will Prevail (2002), Relapse
• Kiss the Pig (2004), Relapse
• Axis of Eden (2007), SuperNova
• Pain Is a Warning (2011), Black Market Activities

Live releases[link]

• Live Till You Die CD (2000), Relapse
• Blue Blood CD (2002), Rage of Achilles
• Willpower DVD (2007), SuperNova
• Today Is the Day Live DVD (2006), SuperNova
• Live in Japan DVD (2008), Supernova
• Live at the Whiskey A Go-Go DVD (2008), Supernova

EPs and singles[link]

• How to Win Friends and Influence People EP (1992), self-released
• I Bent Scared 7″ EP (1993), Amphetamine Reptile
• In These Black Days vol. 3 split 7″ with Coalesce (1997), Hydra Head
• Zodiac Dreaming split Mini CD with 16 (2001), Trash Art!
• Descent split CD with Metatron (2001), Dark Reign

Compilation appearances[link]

• Clusterfuck '94 (live) with Chokebore and Guzzard (1994), Amphetamine Reptile
• Dope Guns 'n Fucking in the Streets vol. 10 (1994), Amphetamine Reptile
• Recollection: Relapse Video Collection DVD (2003), Relapse (contributed video for "Pinnacle")
• Dope Guns 'n Fucking Up Your Video Deck vol. 1–3 1990–1994 DVD (2004), Amphetamine Reptile (contributed videos for "6 Dementia Satyr" and "Realization")
• Relapse Records Contamination Fest 2003 live DVD(2004), Relapse
• Recollection 2: Relapse Video Collection DVD (2004), Relapse (contributed video for "The Descent")
• Recollection 3: Relapse Video Collection DVD (2005), Relapse (contributed video for "Mother's Ruin")

References[link]

External links[link]

• SuperNova Records official website

Sun Ra
Sun Ra at the New England Conservatory of Music, February 27, 1992
Background information
Birth name	Herman Poole Blount
Also known as	Sun Ra, Le Sony'r Ra
Born	(1914-05-22)May 22, 1914
Origin	Birmingham, Alabama, United States
Died	May 30, 1993(1993-05-30) (aged 79)
Genres	Hard bop, swing, avant-garde jazz, free jazz, experimental music, Hip-Hop
Occupations	Bandleader, composer
Instruments	Hammond organ, piano, organ, keyboards, Minimoog, Celesta
Years active	1934–1993
Labels	El Saturn Records, Impulse!, MPS Records, ESP-Disk, Black Saint, A&M, Leo
Associated acts	Arkestra

Sun Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, legal name Le Sony'r Ra;^[1] May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993) was a prolific jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his "cosmic philosophy," musical compositions and performances. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama. He is a 1979 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame.

"Of all the jazz musicians, Sun Ra was probably the most controversial," critic Scott Yanow said,^[2] because of Sun Ra's eclectic music and unorthodox lifestyle. Claiming that he was of the "Angel Race" and not from Earth, but from Saturn, Sun Ra developed a complex persona using "cosmic" philosophies and lyrical poetry that made him a pioneer of afrofuturism. He preached awareness and peace above all. He abandoned his birth name and took on the name and persona of Sun Ra (Ra being the Egyptian God of the Sun), and used several other names throughout his career, including Le Sonra and Sonny Lee.^[3] Sun Ra denied any connection with his birth name, saying "That's an imaginary person, never existed … Any name that I use other than Ra is a pseudonym."^[4]

From the mid-1950s to his death, Sun Ra led "The Arkestra" (a deliberate re-spelling of "orchestra"), an ensemble with an ever-changing lineup and name. It was by turns called "The Solar Myth Arkestra", "His Cosmo Discipline Arkestra", the "Blue Universe Arkestra", "The Jet Set Omniverse Arkestra", as well as many other permutations. Sun Ra asserted that the ever-changing name of his ensemble reflected the ever-changing nature of his music. His mainstream success was limited, but Sun Ra was a prolific recording artist and frequent live performer. His music ranged from keyboard solos to big bands of over 30 musicians and touched on virtually the entire history of jazz, from ragtime to swing music, from bebop to free jazz. He was also a pioneer of electronic music and space music.^[5] He also used free improvisation and was one of the first musicians, of any genre, to make extensive use of electronic keyboards.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

For decades, very little was known about Sun Ra's early life, much of it being obscured by Sun Ra himself. He routinely gave evasive, contradictory or seemingly nonsensical answers to personal questions and even denied his birth name. His birthday for years remained unknown, his birth year being claimed as years ranging from 1910 to 1918. Only a few years before his death, the date of Sun Ra's birth remained a mystery. Jim Macnie's notes for Blue Delight (1989) could only state that Sun Ra was believed to be about 75 years old. However, Ra's biographer John F. Szwed was able to uncover a wealth of information about Ra's early life, including confirming a May 22, 1914 birth date. Named after the popular vaudeville stage magician Black Herman, who had deeply impressed his mother, Sun Ra would speculate, only half in jest, that he was distantly related to Elijah Poole, later famous as Elijah Muhammed, leader of the Nation of Islam. He was nicknamed "Sonny" from his childhood, had an older sister and half-brother, and was doted upon by his mother and grandmother.

Herman Blount was a skilled pianist as a child. By 11 or 12 years old he was writing original songs,^[6] and was able to sight read sheet music. Birmingham was an important stop for touring musicians, and he saw famous musicians like Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, along with less-famous performers who were often just as talented as their better-known peers, with Sun Ra once stating "the world let down a lot of good musicians".^[7] In his teenage years, Blount demonstrated prodigious musical talent: many times, according to acquaintances, he would see big band performances and produce full transcriptions of the bands' songs from memory. By his mid-teens Blount was performing semi-professionally as a solo pianist, or as a member of various ad hoc jazz and R&B groups. He attended Birmingham's Industrial High School (now known as Parker High School) where he studied under famed music teacher John T. "Fess" Whatley, a demanding disciplinarian who was widely respected and whose classes produced many professional musicians.

At ten years old Blount joined the Knights of Pythias, and remained a member until he graduated from high school. His family was deeply religious but was not formally associated with any Christian church or sect. Blount had few or no close friends in high school but was remembered as kind-natured and quiet, an honor roll student, and a voracious reader. The Black Masonic Lodge was one of the few places in Birmingham where African-Americans had essentially unlimited access to books, and the Lodge's many books on Freemasonry and other esoteric concepts made a large impression on him.

Also by his teens, Blount suffered from cryptorchidism,^[8] a chronic testicular hernia that left him with a nearly constant discomfort that sometimes flared into severe pain. Szwed suggests that the condition left Blount with a sense of shame and increased his sense of isolation.

Early professional career and college[link]

In 1934 Blount was offered his first full-time musical job when Industrial High School Biology teacher Ethel Harper organized a band and decided to pursue a career as a singer. Blount joined a musicians' trade union and Harper's group toured through the US southeast and Midwest. Harper left the group mid-tour to move to New York (she later was a member of the modestly successful singing group the Ginger Snaps), and Blount took over leadership of the group, renaming it the Sonny Blount Orchestra. They continued touring for several months before dissolving the unprofitable group. Though the first edition of the Sonny Blount Orchestra was not financially successful, they earned positive notice from fans and other musicians, and Blount afterwards found steady employment in Birmingham.

The clubs of Birmingham often featured exotic trappings such as vivid lighting and murals with tropical or oasis scenes that were believed to have influenced Sun Ra's later stage shows. The big bands also imparted a sense of pride and togetherness to black musicians: musicians were highly regarded in the black community, and were expected to be disciplined and presentable, and in the segregated south, black musicians arguably had the most acceptance in white society, often performing for white high society audiences (though they were typically forbidden from associating with the audiences).

In 1936 Whatley's intercession led to Blount being awarded a scholarship at Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University. He was a music education major, studying composition, orchestration, and music theory, but after a year, he dropped out.

"Trip to Saturn"[link]

Finances and his increasing sense of isolation are believed to have been a factor in Sun Ra's leaving college, but perhaps more importantly, he claimed a visionary experience as a college student, a strange event that was to have a major long-term influence on the young pianist. In 1936 or 1937, in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later stated,

… 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. That's what they told me.^[9]

Sun Ra said that this experience occurred in 1936 or 1937, but according to Swzed, even his closest associates cannot date the story any earlier than 1952 (Sun Ra also stated that it occurred when he was living in Chicago, a town he did not regularly inhabit until the late 1940s). With no substantial variations, Sun Ra discussed the vision to the end of his life. The trip to Saturn allegedly happened a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold; about 15 years before the contactees and their stories of benevolent Space Brothers were publicized by the likes of George Adamski; and almost 20 years before sinister UFO abductions were a public concept with the 1961 case of Barney and Betty Hill. Szwed states that "even if this story is revisionist autobiography … Sonny was pulling together several strains of his life. He was both prophesizing his future and explaining his past with a single act of personal mythology."^[10]

New devotion to music (late 1930s)[link]

Even putting Blount's strange vision aside, after leaving college, he became known as perhaps the most singularly devoted musician in Birmingham. He rarely slept, citing Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, and Napoleon as fellow highly productive cat-nappers. He transformed the first floor of his family's home into a conservatory-workshop where he wrote songs, transcribed recordings, rehearsed with the many musicians who were nearly constantly drifting in and out, and discussed Biblical and esoteric concepts with whomever was interested.^[11]

Blount became a regular at Birmingham's Forbes Piano Company, a white-owned company which—astoundingly for a business in the Deep South^{[citation needed]}—simply ignored the strict Jim Crow laws of the racially segregated era. Blount visited the Forbes building almost daily to play music, swap ideas with staff and customers, or copy sheet music into his notebooks. He formed a new band, and, like his old teacher Whatley, insisted on rigorous daily rehearsals. The new Sonny Blount Orchestra earned a reputation as an impressive, disciplined band that could play in a wide variety of styles with equal skill.

Draft and wartime experiences[link]

In October 1942 Blount received a selective service notification that he had been drafted into the Military of the United States. He quickly declared himself a conscientious objector, citing religious objections to war and killing, his financial support of his great-aunt Ida, and his chronic hernia. His case was rejected by the local draft board, and in his appeal to the national draft board, Blount wrote that the lack of black men on the draft appeal board "smacks of Hitlerism".^[12] His family was deeply embarrassed by Sonny's refusal to join the military, and he was effectively ostracized by many of his relatives. Blount was eventually approved for alternate service at Civilian Public Service camp in Pennsylvania. However, Blount didn't appear at the camp as scheduled on December 8, 1942, and shortly thereafter, he was arrested in Alabama.

In court, Blount declared that even alternate service was unacceptable to him, and he debated the judge on points of law and Biblical interpretation. Though sympathetic to Blount, the judge also declared that he was clearly in violation of the law, and was risking forcible induction into the U.S. Military. Blount declared that if he were inducted, he would use his military weapons and training to kill the first high-ranking military officer he could. The judge sentenced Blount to jail (pending draft board and CPS rulings), and then declared "I've never seen a nigger like you before;" Blount replied, "No, and you never will again."^[13]

In January 1943 a desperate Blount wrote to the United States Marshals Service from the Walker County, Alabama jail in Jasper. He said he was facing a nervous breakdown from the stress of imprisonment, that he was suicidal, and that he was in constant fear of sexual assault. His conscientious objector status was eventually reaffirmed in February 1943 and Blount was escorted to Pennsylvania where he conducted forestry work in the day and was allowed to play piano at night. Psychiatrists there described him as "a psychopathic personality [and] sexually perverted" but also as "a well-educated colored intellectual".^[14]

In March 1943 Blount was classified as 4-F because of his hernia. He returned to Birmingham embittered and angered by his experiences. He formed a new band and quickly was playing professionally. After his beloved great-aunt Ida died in 1945, Blount felt no reason to stay in Birmingham. He dissolved the band, and moved to Chicago, part of the wave of southern African Americans who moved north during and after World War II.

Chicago years (1945–1961)[link]

In Chicago Blount quickly found work, notably with blues singer Wynonie Harris, with whom he made his recording debut on two 1946 singles, "Dig This Boogie/Lightning Struck the Poorhouse" and "My Baby's Barrelhouse"/"Drinking By Myself;" "Dig This Boogie" was also Blount's first recorded piano solo. He performed with the locally successful Lil Green band and played bump-and-grind music for months in Calumet City strip clubs.

In August 1946, Blount earned a lengthy engagement at the Club DeLisa under bandleader and composer Fletcher Henderson. Blount had long admired Henderson, but Henderson's fortunes were fading (his band was now made of up middling musicians rather than the stars of earlier years) in large part because of his instability, due to Fletcher's long term injuries from a car accident. Henderson hired Blount as pianist and arranger, replacing Marl Young. Ra's arrangements initially showed a degree of bebop influence, but the band members resisted the new music, despite Henderson's encouragement.

In 1948 Blount performed briefly in a trio with saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and violinist Stuff Smith, both preeminent swing-era musicians. There are no known recordings of this trio, but a home recording of a Blount-Smith duet from 1953 appears on Sound Sun Pleasure, and one of Sun Ra's final recordings was a rare sideman appearance on violinist Billy Bang's Tribute to Stuff Smith.

In addition to professional advancement, Chicago also changed Blount's personal outlook. The city was a center of African American political activism and fringe movements, with Black Muslims, Black Hebrews, and others proselytizing, debating, and printing leaflets or books. Blount absorbed it all and was fascinated with the city's many ancient Egyptian-styled buildings and monuments. He read books like George G.M. James's Stolen Legacy (which argued that classical Greek philosophy actually had its roots in ancient Egypt), which convinced Blount that the accomplishments and history of Africans had been systematically suppressed and denied by European cultures.

By 1952 Blount was leading the Space Trio with drummer Tommy "Bugs" Hunter and saxophonist Pat Patrick, two of the most accomplished musicians he had known. They performed regularly and Sun Ra began writing more advanced songs.

On October 20, 1952 Blount legally changed his name to Le Sony'r Ra. Sun Ra claimed^[15] to have always been uncomfortable with his birth name of Blount, seeing it as a slave name of a family that he was not really a member of. One observer has argued that this change was similar to the way "Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali … [dropped] their slave names in the process of attaining a new self-awareness and self-esteem".^[16]

Patrick left the group to move to Florida with his new wife; not long after, Patrick's friend John Gilmore (tenor sax) joined the group, and Marshall Allen (alto sax) soon joined the fold. Patrick was in and out of the group until the end of his life, but Allen and Gilmore—who would both earn critical praise for their talents—were the two most devoted members of the Arkestra. Saxophonist James Spaulding and trombonist Julian Priester also recorded with Sun Ra in Chicago, and both went on to notable careers of their own. The Chicago tenorist Von Freeman also did a short stint with the band of the early 1950s.^[17]

In Chicago, Blount met Alton Abraham, a precociously intelligent teenager and something of a kindred spirit who became the Arkestra's biggest booster and one of Sun Ra's closest friends. The men both felt like outsiders and shared an interest in fringe esoterica. Abraham's strengths balanced Ra's shortcomings: though he was a disciplined bandleader, Sun Ra was somewhat introverted and lacked business sense (a trait that would haunt his entire career); Abraham was outgoing, well-connected, and practical. Though still a teenager, Abraham eventually became Sun Ra's de facto business manager: he booked performances, suggested musicians for the Arkestra, and introduced several popular songs into the group's repertoire. Ra, Abraham and others formed a sort of book club to trade ideas and discuss the offbeat topics that so intrigued them. This group printed a number of pamphlets and broadsides explaining their conclusions and ideas; some of these were collected by critic John Corbett and Anthony Elms as The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets (2006).

Sun Ra and Abraham also formed an independent record label in the mid-1950s; it was generally known as El Saturn Records, though (as with the Arkestra) there were several variants of the name. Initially focused on 45 rpm singles by Sun Ra and artists related to him, Saturn Records did issue two full-length albums during the 1950s: Super-Sonic Jazz (1957) and Jazz In Silhouette (1959). Producer Tom Wilson was actually the first to release a Sun Ra album, through his independent label Transition Records in 1957, entitled Jazz by Sun Ra.^[18] During this era, Sun Ran recorded the first of dozens of singles as a band-for-hire backing a range of doo wop and R&B singers; several dozen of these were reissued in a two-CD set, The Singles, by Evidence Records.

It was during the late 1950s that Sun Ra and his band began wearing the outlandish, Egyptian-styled or science fiction-themed costumes and headdresses for which they would become known. These costumes had multiple purposes: they evidenced Sun Ra's abiding fascination with ancient Egypt and the space age; they provided a sort of distinctive, memorable uniform for the Arkestra; they were a way to take on a new identity, at least while onstage; and they provided comic relief (Sun Ra thought avant garde musicians typically took themselves far too seriously).

New York years (1961–1968)[link]

Sun Ra and some of his core musicians (Allen, Gilmore, and Boykins) left Chicago in July 1961, staying in Montreal through the end of September before settling in New York City. They initially had trouble finding performance venues and began living communally because of New York's higher cost of living. This frustration helped to fuel the drastic changes in the Arkestra's sound as Sun Ra's music underwent a free jazz-influenced experimental period.

In March 1966 the Arkestra scored a regular Monday night gig at Slug's Saloon. This proved to be a breakthrough to new audiences and recognition. Sun Ra's popularity reached an early peak during this period, as the beat generation and early followers of psychedelia embraced him. Regularly for the next year and a half (and intermittently for another half-decade afterwards), Sun Ra and company performed at Slug's for audiences that eventually came to include music critics and notable jazz musicians. Opinions of Sun Ra's music were divided (and hecklers were not uncommon), but high praise came from two of the architects of bebop: trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie offered encouragement, once stating, "Keep it up, Sonny, they tried to do the same shit to me",^[19] while pianist Thelonious Monk chided someone who said Sun Ra was "too far out" by responding, "Yeah, but it swings."^[20]

Philadelphia years (1968–1993)[link]

In 1968, when the New York building they were renting was put up for sale, Sun Ra and the Arkestra relocated to the Germantown section of Philadelphia, where his Morton Street house remained the Arkestra's base of operations until Sun Ra's death. Apart from occasional complaints about the noise of rehearsals, they were soon regarded as good neighbors because of their friendliness, drug-free living, and rapport with youngsters. Saxophonist Danny Thompson owned and operated the Pharaoh's Den, a convenience store in the neighborhood. When lightning struck a tree on their street, Sun Ra took it as a good omen and multireedist James Jacson fashioned the Cosmic Infinity Drum from the scorched tree trunk. They still commuted via railroad to New York for the Monday night gig at Slug's and for other engagements.

In late 1968 Sun Ra and the Arkestra undertook their first tour of the US West Coast. Reactions were mixed; even hippies accustomed to long-form psychedelia like the Grateful Dead were often bewildered by the Arkestra, which included 20–30 musicians, dancers, singers, fire-eaters, and elaborate lighting. John Burks of Rolling Stone wrote a positive review of a San Jose State College concert that led to Sun Ra being featured on the April 19, 1969 cover of the magazine and introducing Sun Ra's inscrutable gaze to millions. This first West Coast tour also led to vibraphonist Damon Choice, then an art student at San Jose, joining the Arkestra.

Starting with concerts in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom in 1970, the Arkestra began to find opportunities for working outside the US, playing to audiences who had hitherto known his music only through records. Sun Ra continued playing in Europe to nearly the end of his life. Given Sun Ra's unorthodox financial management, saxophonist Danny Thompson became a de facto tour and business manager during this era, specializing in what he called "no bullshit C.O.D.",^[21] preferring to take cash before performing or delivering records.

In early 1971 Sun Ra was artist-in-residence at University of California, Berkeley, teaching a course called "The Black Man In the Cosmos". Rather few students enrolled but the classes were often full of curious persons from the surrounding community. One half-hour of each class was devoted to a lecture (complete with handouts and homework assignments), the other half-hour to an Arkestra performance or Sun Ra keyboard solo. Reading lists included the works of Madame Blavatsky and Henry Dumas, the Book of the Dead, Alexander Hislop's The Two Babylons, The Book of Oahspe and assorted volumes concerning Egyptian hieroglyphs, African American folklore, and other topics.

In 1971, Sun Ra traveled throughout Egypt with the Arkestra at the invitation of drummer Salah Ragab. He would travel to Egypt in again 1983 and 1984, when he would record with Ragab once more. Recordings made in Egypt have been released on Live in Egypt, Nidhamu, Sun Ra Meets Salah Ragab, Egypt Strut and Horizon.^[22][23][24]

In 1972 San Francisco public TV station KQED producer John Coney, producer Jim Newman, and screen writer Joshua Smith worked with Sun Ra to produce an 85-minute feature film, entitled Space Is the Place, with Sun Ra's Arkestra and an ensemble of actors assembled by the production team. It was filmed in Oakland and San Francisco. On May 20, 1978 Sun Ra and the Arkestra appeared on Saturday Night Live.

In the mid-1970s, the Arkestra would sometimes play free Saturday afternoon concerts in a Germantown park near their Philadelphia home. Sometimes at their mid 1970s shows in Philadelphia nightclubs, someone would stand at the back of the room, selling stacks of unmarked LPs in plain white sleeves, pressed from recordings of the band's live performances (including one Halloween show where the salesman was dressed as a golden alien, and the LPs included a cover arrangement of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow").

Back in New York City, in the fall of 1979, Sun Ra and the Arkestra were essentially the 'house band' at the notorious Squat Theater on 23rd St.-the performance home of the avant garde Hungarian theater troupe. Their young mastermind manager, Janos, transformed the theater into a riveting nightclub while the core of the troupe was away that season performing in Europe. Debbie Harry, 'The Velvet Underground's' John Cale and Nico (from Andy Warhol's factory days), John Lurie and 'The Lounge Lizards' and other pop and avant garde musicians were regulars. Sun Ra was a disciplined person who avoided drinking anything other than club soda at the gigs, but did not impose his strict code on his musicians, the majority of whom regarded his claim that he was a 'messenger' from Saturn with wry skepticism. Nevertheless it was clear they deeply respected his genius, discipline and authority. Soft spoken and charismatic, Sun Ra turned Squat Theater into a syncopated universe of big band 'space' jazz backed by a floor show of writhing, sexy, Jupiterettes—him directing and playing three synthesizers at the same time. In those days 'Space Is The Place' was the space at Squat.

The Arkestra continued their touring and recording through the 1980s and into the 1990s, and Sun Ra became a fixture in Philadelphia, appearing semi-regularly on WXPN radio, giving lectures to community groups, or haunting the city's libraries.

Even after a stroke in 1990, Sun Ra kept composing, performing, and leading the Arkestra. Late in his career, Sun Ra opened a few concerts for New York–based rock group Sonic Youth. Eventually, Sun Ra grew too ill to perform and tour, and he entrusted Gilmore with leading the Arkestra. (Gilmore himself was frail from emphysema, and when he died, Allen would take over leadership of the Arkestra.) Sun Ra went back to Birmingham and reconnected with his sister whom he had rarely seen for nearly 40 years. He contracted pneumonia, died in Birmingham on May 30, 1993, and was buried at the Elmwood Cemetery. According to the hospital, he had also been affected by circulatory system problems and numerous strokes shortly before his death.^[3] The small footstone read only "Sonny Blount (aka [sic] Le Son'y [sic] Ra)".^[25]

The Arkestra continues[link]

Following Sun Ra's death, the Arkestra was led by tenor saxophonist John Gilmore. Following Gilmore's death, the group has performed under the direction of alto saxophonist Marshall Allen, who celebrated his 80th birthday on stage during Arkestra performances at the Vox Populi gallery in Philadelphia and the Vision Festival in New York City. A 1999 album led by Allen, Song for the Sun, features Jimmy Hopps and Dick Griffin. In the summer of 2004 the Arkestra became the first American jazz band to perform in Tuva, playing five sets at the Ustuu-Huree Festival.^[26] As of May 2008, the Arkestra continues to tour and perform, with captain Marshall Allen celebrating his 84th birthday on stage at New York City's Sullivan Hall. In September 2008 they played for 7 days in a row at the ZXZW festival, every day emphasizing different aspects of the musical legacy of Sun Ra. The Arkestra celebrated Allen's 85th birthday on May 24, 2009 to a packed house at Johnny Brenda's in Philadelphia's Fishtown neighborhood. A month later, they performed at Philadelphia's Institute of Contemporary Art in conjunction with an exhibition that explored the intersection of the Arkestra's performative legacy and the practice of contemporary art.^[27] More recently they ventured to Australia for the first time for the 2011 Melbourne International Jazz Festival, still under the control of the sprightly 87-year-old Marshall Allen, playing to very enthusiastic sold-out crowds.

Music[link]

Sun Ra's piano technique touched on many styles: his youthful fascination with boogie woogie, stride piano and blues, a sometimes refined touch reminiscent of Count Basie or Ahmad Jamal, and angular phrases in the style of Thelonious Monk or brutal, percussive attacks like Cecil Taylor. Often overlooked is the range of influences from classical music—Sun Ra cited Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Schoenberg and Shostakovich as his favorite composers for the piano.^[28]

As a synthesizer and electric keyboard player, Sun Ra ranks among one of the earliest and most radical pioneers. By the mid-1950s, he used a variety of electric keyboards, and almost immediately, he exploited their potential perhaps more than anyone, sometimes modifying them himself to produce sounds rarely if ever heard before. His live albums from the late 1960s and early 1970s feature some of the noisiest, most bizarre keyboard work ever recorded. Sun Ra's music can be roughly divided into three phases, but his records and performances were full of surprises.

Chicago phase[link]

The first period occurred in the 1950s when Sun Ra's music evolved from big band swing into the outer-space-themed "cosmic jazz" for which he was best known. Music critics and jazz historians say some of his best work was recorded during this period and it is also some of his most accessible music. Sun Ra's music in this era was often tightly arranged and sometimes reminiscent of Duke Ellington's, Count Basie's, or other important swing music ensembles. However, there was a strong influence from post-swing styles like bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, and touches of the exotic and hints of the experimentalism that would dominate his later music. Notable Sun Ra albums from the 1950s include Sun Ra Visits Planet Earth, Interstellar Low Ways, Super-Sonic Jazz, We Travel the Spaceways, The Nubians of Plutonia and Jazz In Silhouette.

Ronnie Boykins, Sun Ra's bassist, has been described as "the pivot around which much of Sun Ra's music revolved for eight years". This is especially pronounced on the key recordings from 1965 (The Magic City, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One, and The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume Two) where the intertwining lines of Boykins' bass and Ra's electronic keyboards provide cohesion.

New York phase[link]

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. Recordings of this era began to utilize new technological possibilities such as extensive use of tape delay systems to assemble spatial sound pieces which are far removed from earlier compositions such as "Saturn". Recordings and live performances often featured passages for unusual instrumental combinations and passages of collective playing which point towards free improvisation—in fact, it is often difficult to tell where the compositions end and the improvisations begin.

In this era Sun Ra began conducting using hand and body gestures. This system would inspire cornetist Butch Morris, who would later develop 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."^[29]

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.

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.

Philadelphia phase[link]

During their third period, beginning in the 1970s and onward, Sun Ra and the Arkestra settled down into a relatively conventional sound, often incorporating swing standards, though their records and concerts were still highly eclectic and energetic, and typically included at least one lengthy, semi-improvised percussion jam. Sun Ra was explicitly asserting a continuity with the ignored jazz tradition: "They tried to fool you, now I got to school you, about jazz, all about jazz" he rapped, framing the inclusion of pieces by Fletcher Henderson and Jelly Roll Morton.

In the 1970s Sun Ra took a liking to the films of Walt Disney. He incorporated smatterings of Disney musical numbers into many of his performances from then on. In the late 1980s the Arkestra performed a concert at Walt Disney World. The Arkestra's version of "Pink Elephants on Parade" is available on Stay Awake, a tribute album of Disney tunes played by various artists and produced by Hal Willner. A number of Sun Ra's 1970s concerts are available on CD, but none have received a wide release in comparison to his earlier music. The album Atlantis can be considered the landmark that led into his 1970s era. In 1978-1980 performances, Sun Ra added a large electronic creation, the Outerspace Visual Communicator, which produced images rather than sounds; this was performed at a keyboard by its inventor, Bill Sebastian. During concerts, the OVC usually was positioned at center stage behind the Arkestra while Sebastian sat on stage with the musicians.

Musicians[link]

Certainly dozens of musicians—perhaps hundreds—passed through Sun Ra's bands over the years. Some stayed with him for decades, while others made only a few recordings or performances.

Sun Ra was personally responsible for the vast majority of the constant changes in the Arkestra's lineup. According to contrabassist Jiunie Booth, himself a member of the Arkestra, Sun Ra would not confront any musician whose performance he was unsatisfied with. Instead, Sun Ra would simply gather the entire Arkestra minus the offending musician, and skip town, leaving the fired musician stranded. After repeated instances of US jazz musicians becoming stranded in foreign countries, Sun Ra's unique method of dismissal became a diplomatic liability for the United States. The U.S. State Department was compelled to tell Sun Ra to bring any fired musicians stateside rather than leaving them stranded.^{[citation needed]}

The following is a partial list of musical collaborators and the eras in which they played with Sun Ra and/or the Arkestra:

Philosophy[link]

Sun Ra's world view was often described as a philosophy, but he rejected this term, describing his own manner as an "equation"—he claimed that while philosophy was based on theories and abstract reasoning, his method was based on logic and pragmatism. Many of the Arkestra cite Sun Ra's teachings as pivotal and for inspiring such long-term devotion to the music that they knew would never make them much money. His equation was rarely (if ever) explained as a whole; instead, it was related in bits and pieces over many years, leading some to think his world view was naïve or composed of nonsensical new-age platitudes. However, Martinelli argues that, when considered as a whole, one can discern a unified world view that draws upon many sources, but is also unique to Sun Ra, writing:

Sun Ra presents a unified conception, incorporating music, myth, and performance into his multi-leveled equations. Every aspect of the Sun Ra experience, from business practices like Saturn Records to published collections of poetry to his 35-year career in music, is a manifestation of his equations. Sun Ra seeks to elevate humanity beyond their current earthbound state, tied to outmoded conceptions of life and death when the potential future of immortality awaits them. As Hall has put it, 'In this era of 'practical' things men ridicule even the existence of God. They scoff at goodness while they ponder with befuddled minds the phantasmagoria of materiality. They have forgotten the path which leads beyond the stars.'^[16]

He drew on sources as diverse as the Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, channeling, numerology, Freemasonry, and black nationalism. Sun Ra's system had distinct Gnostic leanings^[31] arguing that the god of most monotheistic religions was not the creator god, not the ultimate god, but a lesser, evil being. Sun Ra was wary of the Bible, knowing that it had been used to justify slavery. He would often re-arrange and re-word Biblical passages (along with re-working many other words, names or phrases) in an attempt to uncover "hidden" meanings. The most obvious evidence of this system was Ra's practice of renaming many of the musicians who played with him.

Bassoonist/multireedist James Jacson had studied Zen Buddhism before joining Sun Ra and identified strong similarities between Zen teachings and practices (particularly Zen koans) and Ra's use of non sequiturs and seemingly absurd replies to questions.^[32] Drummer Art Jenkins admitted that Sun Ra's "nonsense" sometimes troubled his thoughts for days until inspiring a sort of paradigm shift, or profound change in outlook.^[33] Drummer Andrew Cyrille said Sun Ra's comments were "very interesting stuff … whether you believed it or not. And a lot of times it was humorous, and a lot of times it was ridiculous, and a lot of times it was right on the money."^[34]

Some of Sun Ra's songs with words featured lyrics that although simple, were inspirational and philosophical. The most famous example was "Space is the Place!". Another example was the song that went, "You made a mistake. You did something wrong. Make another mistake, and do something right!". Sometimes (typically at the end of a set) the entire Arkestra would snake out through the audience, playing and chanting something like this. Sun Ra even came up once, behind a frightened young audience member, grabbed him in a bear hug, and whispered this in his ear, while the whole band chanted and played along, in a circle around his table, with the rest of the audience watching on in amusement. (1978, in a performance in a small short-lived nightclub on City Line Avenue in Philadelphia)^{[citation needed]}

Sun Ra and black culture[link]

According to Szwed^[35] Sun Ra's view of his relationship to black people and black cultures "changed drastically" over time. Initially, Sun Ra identified closely with broader struggles for black power, black political influence, and black identity, and saw his own music as a key element in educating and liberating blacks. But by the heyday of black power radicalism in the 1960s, Sun Ra was expressing disillusionment with these aims, and he denied feeling closely connected to any race. In 1970 he said:

I couldn't approach black people with the truth because they like lies. They live lies … At one time I felt that white people were to blame for everything, but then I found out that they were just puppets and pawns of some greater force, which has been using them … Some force is having a good time [manipulating black and white people] and looking, enjoying itself up in a reserved seat, wondering, "I wonder when they're going to wake up."^[36]

Influence and legacy[link]

Many of Sun Ra's innovations remain important and groundbreaking. Ra was one of the first jazz leaders to use two basses, to employ the electric bass, to play electronic keyboards, to use extensive percussion and polyrhythms, to explore modal music and to pioneer solo and group freeform improvisations. In addition, he made his mark in the wider cultural context: he proclaimed the African origins of jazz, reaffirmed pride in black history and reasserted the spiritual and mystical dimensions of music, all important factors in the black cultural/political renaissance of the 1960s.

George Clinton of P-funk fame drew inspiration from Sun Ra; see P-Funk mythology. He once declared in an interview, "Yeah, Sun Ra's out to lunch... same place I eat at!"^[37]

Detroit's MC5 played a handful of shows with Sun Ra and were influenced by his works immensely. One of their songs from their premiere album Kick Out the Jams featured a track called "Starship" , which was based upon a poem by Ra .

He was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1979. His interment was located in Elmwood Cemetery.

Filmography[link]

Sun Ra and his Arkestra were the subject of a few documentary films, notably Robert Mugge's A Joyful Noise (1980), which interspersed performances and rehearsals with Sun Ra's commentary on various subjects ranging from today's youth to his own place in the cosmos. There is also a feature film entitled Space Is the Place from 1974 which stars Sun Ra and his band who play themselves. The soundtrack, also by Sun Ra, is available on CD.

In 1995 his influence was a significant factor in the foundation of the Association of Autonomous Astronauts.

More recently (2005) Don Letts' Sun Ra—Brother from Another Planet reuses some of Mugge's material and includes some additional interviews.

In 2009, Points On A Space Age, a documentary by Ephrahaim Asili was released.^[38] "It's a 60-minute doc along the lines of the talking-head-intercut-with performance clips style. It works because of the interesting and passionate nature of the images of the band as well as of the audio, as the band attempts to articulate what Ra meant to them, and why they are keeping the flame alive. He “left the earth” for his next mission in 1993. The remnants of the band include Marshall Allen, Ra’s greatest discliple as well as current bandleader and keeper of the flame. Now 86, Allen also serves as recruiter for new members, and potential converts of Sun Ra’s philosophy, once based on space travel and music as a tool for evolution into a new consciousness and tuning into holy vibrations."^[39]

Bibliography[link]

Sun Ra wrote an enormous number of songs and material regarding his spiritual beliefs and music. A magazine titled Sun Ra Research was published irregularly for many years, providing extensive documentation of Sun Ra's perspectives on many issues. Sun Ra's collected poetry and prose is available as a book, published May 2005, entitled Sun Ra, The Immeasurable Equation. Another book of over 260 of Sun Ra's poems, Sun Ra: Collected Works Vol. 1: Immeasurable Equation was published by Phaelos Books in November 2005. The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets, was published in book form in 2005, by WhiteWalls. A collection of Sun Ra's poetry, This Planet Is Doomed, was published by Kicks Books in 2011.

Discography[link]

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Szwed, John F. (August 21, 1998). Space Is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra. Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-306-80855-5. 
• Ra, Sun; Wolf, James L.; Geerken, Hartmut (September 1, 2006). Sun Ra: The Immeasurable Equation: The Collected Poetry and Prose. Waitawhile. ISBN 978-3-8334-2659-9. 
• Ra, Sun (August 1, 2006). Elms, Anthony; Corbett, John. ed. The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets. Chicago, Illinois: WhiteWalls. ISBN 978-0-945323-07-5. 

External links[link]

• Official site of the Sun Ra Arkestra under the direction of Marshall Allen
• Sun Ra Arkestra under the direction of Marshall Allen perform at the Philadelphia ICA (July, 2009)
• Space is the Place film
• 1988 interview with Sun Ra
• Sun Ra at Find a Grave

Dan Lurie (born April 1, 1923 in Brooklyn, New York City) is a founding father of bodybuilding and a physical fitness pioneer. A world-class bodybuilder in the 1940s, by 1949 he had won the Mr. America title of "America's Most Muscular Man" four times.^[1]In 1948, Lurie established the International Federation of Body Builders and he owns the Dan Lurie Gyms and Health Clubs, a gym which has attracted people such as Sylvester Stallone. On April 29, 2007, Lurie was inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.^[2]

His book, Heart of Steel: The Dan Lurie Story with foreword by Regis Philbin, chronicles how he overcame poverty to rise to success in the fitness industry and exposes the truth behind his relationships with other famed fitness industry men such as Joe Weider, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno.^[3]

Lurie appeared on the Sealtest Big Top Circus Variety Show on CBS. This was the first color television program in the USA. He played "Sealtest Dan, The Muscle Man". Ed McMahon played a clown. He also appeared as "The Mighty Rewop" in the popular children's TV series Captain Video.

Strength and endurance records[link]

• 1225 parallel dips in 90 minutes^{[citation needed]}
• A one handed over head bent press with 285 lb bodyweight 168 lb^{[citation needed]}
• Leg press with 1230 lb^{[citation needed]}
• Back lift of 1810 lb^{[citation needed]}

References[link]

External links [link]

• Dan Lurie's Official Website
• Muscular Development article by Joe Pietaro, July 2009