Introduction
You have just been listening to “Saturn”, a composition from the famous jazz artist Lesonya Ra also known as Sun Ra. Coming from one of his earlier albums Jazz in Silhouette released in March of 1959 featuring Saxophonist John Coltrane. Sun Ra reigned in the world of Jazz from the 1930s to the early 1990s. Getting his start in bebop, as can be heard in ‘Saturn’ he would soon move on to revolutionizing the sound of Jazz with the use of electronic instruments, most notably his electronic keyboard. His band, The Arkestra, also utilized the electric celeste and synthesizers. These electronics would create quite a futuristic sound to his music, in a time when space exploration was becoming the future electronic sounds could often be considered “out of this world”. Here is a clip from his 1980 performance at Haverford College in which he used an electronic piano. Sun Ra was seen as being quite unusual among his peers, his performances were often Space-themed and he dressed like an Egyptian Pharaoh, extravagance, and exaggeration were his niches. His tendency to adopt Egyptian themes was likely driven by the fact that he chose his stage name after the Egyptian sun god Ra, this makes sense as he often saw himself as more than just human, an extraterrestrial being. In a clip from his movie “Space is the Place”, he is introduced as an extraterrestrial being from beyond the stars when performing a concert. More than just a musician, Sun Ra was an Activist, using his knowledge of black history combined with Egyptian and space-themed iconography he pioneered a brand of black activism known today as Afrofuturism. In this way he focused less on desegregation and more on black people ascending to a higher order of living through space travel. The essential questions we can seek to answer about this influence are How did he influence other artists and Jazz itself and how did his work on Activism impact Afrofuturism for years to come?
Ra’s Influence
The Question may be posted as to just who did he influence? To get a first look at this we can take note of a piece written by a critic Gene Santoro. It mentions a flurry of popular artists who Ra influenced in different ways, a good first example would be Miles Davis whose 1959 LP Kind of Blue took on Sun Ra’s Harmonic structures that avoided repetition of chord cycles in exchange for more modally based open-ended melodies (Santoro,918). Such improvements create more room for improvisation in what is known as free Jazz. Sun Ra himself was considered an inventor of free jazz, later influencing free jazz pioneers John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders. This was often called avant-garde which refers to new and unusual experimental ideas. In the following clip from Ra’s “Outer Nothingness” stemming from his 25th album “The Heliocentric Worlds of Ra, Volume 1” released in 1965 we can see where Ra moves on from bop and swing to become the leader of the avant-garde. In this clip we can hear many different features, notably, we can hear the horns, a multitude of percussion instruments being played by his Arkestra as well as the shifting tempo of the music both of which were all stated by Santoro as being significant contributions to free jazz made Ra. Alternatively, we can see that he also avoided using repeated chord cycles as was common for most jazzmen.
This next clip comes from John Coltrane’s “Ascension Edition 1” released in 1966, a year before his death. In an article from Vulture Magazine called “A somewhat comprehensive guide to Sun Ra’s cosmic Jazz”, the author Andy Beta states that Ra’s 1965 album Jazz in Silhouette was the one to influence artists Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders (Beta 2017). In this recording, we can hear features similar to that of Ra’s “Outernothingness” ranging from non-repetitive chord cycles to the percussions. This clip is a perfect example of John’s free Jazz from which he got inspiration from Ra especially considering it was done merely a year after Ra’s Jazz in Silhouette. Even more interesting is that the saxophonist whom John features on this track is Pharoah Sanders. It is quite obvious that Pharoah Sanders’s name also derives from Egyptian, this is coming from the fact that the name was suggested by Ra himself after saving him from homelessness. This is where Ra’s influence on his life and music began. The following clip comes from Sanders’s 1967 album Tauhid.
Ra’s Influence on the Modern Day World
Like most great musicians Sun Ra’s influence and legacy continue long after his death. An article from Rolling stone magazine by Brad Farberman writes about American R&B singer Solange’s 2016 performance at New York’s Radio City Hall where two pyramids with an orb, resembling that which Sun Ra would often have on stage, sitting between them (Farberman 2017). This was only after Sun Ra’s Arkestra performed as the opening act to Solange’s concert for the second night in a row (Farberman 2017). Another major influence Sun Ra had on the modern world of Jazz was the revival of big bands in the world of Jazz. Sun Ra never went anywhere without his Arkestra, according to Santoro this was because he hated one thing. “He would like to hear a tenor, then alto, then trumpet” (Santoro,919). His Arkestra became a signature and years later we now have many free jazz big bands such as the Webber/Morris big band. The following audio is a clip from their 2020 release “both are true”.
Ra and Afrofuturism
Sun Ra has no doubt had a massive impact on music in terms of free jazz, but he also spent a significant amount of time on a different sound, the sound of Afrofuturism. Afro-futurism is a concept that although has been around for decades was only defined in the 1990s. In an interview with “The Guardian” Afrofuturist Author Ytasha Womack described it as “the intersection between black culture, liberation, and technology with some mythicism thrown in it” (Bakare 2020). She also describes it as having roots in Egyptian Astronomy and the Pyramids(Bakare 2020). No doubt Sun Ra himself had heavy influences on these descriptions as his image was focused on a mixture of the space age and Egyptian mythicism. The sound of Afrofuturism is typically a combination of electronic sounds, avant-garde jazz, psychedelic hip-hop, and science-fiction used to create what Ra described as “cosmic Jazz”(Bakare 2020). In the movie Space Is the Place, when speaking of Black liberation Ra is less interested in desegregation and more focused on using the sound of Afrofuturism to take Black people “beyond the stars” to a whole new realm of existence. During the 50s and 60s, the sound of Afrofuturism was dominated by Sun Ra and John Coltrane and since it has been carried on by many even beyond America with Artists such as King Tubby and Lee Perry sending out cosmic music from Jamaica in the 70s and 80s. Today Modern Artists in R&B and Hip hop, for example, Outkast and Janelle Monae, continue the tradition of Afrofuturism(Bakare 2020).
Conclusion
Sun Ra was indeed a man of mystery and eccentricity but was also a man of great talent whose legacy will live on for years to come. There is still a lot we can inquire about his life and work, is the name ‘Arkestra’ a reference to Noah’s Ark in Abrahamic religion or was that just a mere coincidence? What was the tie between Egyptian mythology and the Space age that caused him to put those themes together? It could be ages-old speculations that the pyramids were built by aliens. We could also look into the Black Arts Movement that found inspiration within the antiquity of African Cultures. Egypt is one of the most historically powerful and influential empires in Africa and no doubt acted as a heavy source of this inspiration. Technology itself is also sometimes seen as the best remedy to our modern-day problems. In my opinion, he could’ve put them together as the ultimate representation of Black liberation and pride. There are no specific answers to some of the things he did but hopefully many years of studying his work and art we could gain an insight into the complexity of his mind.
References/Works Cited
Bakare, Lanre. “Afrofuturism Takes Flight: From Sun Ra to Janelle Monáe.” The Guardian, 25 Mar. 2020, www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jul/24/space-is-the-place-flying-lotus-janelle-monae-afrofuturism.
Beta, Andy. “Space Is the Place: A Somewhat Comprehensive Guide to Sun Ra’s Cosmic Jazz.” Vulture, 11 Oct. 2017, www.vulture.com/2017/10/a-guide-to-legendary-jass-musician-sun-ra.html#:%7E:text=Here%2C%20Sun%20Ra’s%20transformation%20from,Sanders%20and%20Lonnie%20Liston%20Smith.
Farberman, Brad. “Why Is Sun Ra Suddenly Having His Moment?” Rolling Stone, 17 Oct. 2017, www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/why-is-sun-ra-suddenly-having-his-moment-197156.
John Coltrane. Ascension. Coltrane, John; Brown, Marion; Sanders, Pharoah et. al. Ascension Edition I, Impulse! Records,2000.
Lefresne, Brian. “Sun Ra Speaks About the Trial of Angela Davis.” AAIHS, 2 July 2018, www.aaihs.org/sun-ra-speaks-about-the-trial-of-angela-davis.
National Endowment for the Arts. “Sun Ra.” National Endowment for the Arts, 22 May 1914, www.arts.gov/honors/jazz/sun-ra#:%7E:text=Sun%20Ra’s%20band%20became%20a,clavioline%2C%20celeste%2C%20and%20synthesizers.
Sanders Pharoah. Upper and Lower Egypt. Sanders, Pharoah; Blank, Roger; Burrell, Dave; Grimes, Henry; Sharrock, Sony. Tauhid, Universal Music Group, 1995
Prater, David. “Sanders, Pharoah.” Encyclopedia of Arkansas, 19 Mar. 2021, encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/pharoah-sanders-3614.
Santoro, Gene. “Space is the Place, (1987).” Reading Jazz, ed. Robert Gottlieb, pp. 915-920. New York: Vintage Books, 1996.
Sun Ra and his Arkestra. Saturn. Sun Ra and His Arkestra; Coltrane, John. Jazz in Silhouette, Evidence Music Inc, 1 compact disk.
Ra, Sun. Outer Nothingness. Sun Ra and his Arkestra. Heliocentric Worlds of Ra Volume 1, ESP-Disk, 2006.
Morris, Angela. Rebonds. Webber/Morris Big Band; Webber, Anna; Rattman, Jay; Brennan, Patricia. Both Are True,2020
