Born 110 years ago today in Birmingham, Alabama, Herman Poole Blount. He was named for his mother’s favorite entertainer Benjamin Rucker, a vaudevillian magician known as Black Herman. To his family though, he was simply Sonny.

He was already an accomplished pianist by his 12th birthday, composing and transcribing big band arrangements, often by memory, after seeing well known (and not) musicians that passed through Birmingham, including Fletcher Henderson and Duke Ellington. He was an honor roll student at Industrial High School, studying music with John T. “Fess” Whatley, known to be a strict taskmaster who would later step in to facilitate a scholarship for Sonny to attend Alabama Industrial and Mechanical University. He enrolled as a music education major, studying composition, orchestration, and music theory, and lasted a year before dropping out. He explained his decision to leave college:

“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 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 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.”

Once out of college, Blount dedicated himself to music. Taking his cue from Thomas Edison, DaVinci and Napoleon, he rarely slept other than catnaps. He turned the first floor of his family’s home into a conservatory of his own, jamming with other musicians, composing, transcribing, rehearsing, and discussing, with anyone interested, the esoteric concepts that most fascinated him. Following his Aunt Ida’s passing in 1945, he felt no need to remain in Birmingham, relocating to Chicago. He found work quickly, backing the great blues singer Wynonnie Harris, with whom he’d make his recording debut on two 1946 singles. By the summer of that year, he’d become a full-time member of Fletcher Henderson’s band, becoming pianist and band arranger, though some of the musicians resisted Blount’s music. His worldview began to formulate in this time, due to Chicago’s vibrant African American political activism, with fringe movements including Black Muslims, and Black Hebrews (seeing themselves as descendants of The Israelites). He was also taken with Chicago’s older Egyptian styled architecture, as well as the book Stolen Legacy, which claimed Greek philosophy was rooted in ancient Egypt. By 1952, he was the leader of The Space Trio, performing in the city regularly, and expanding his composition style.

On October 30, 1952, Herman Poole Blount legally changed his name to Le Sony’r Ra, going by Sun Ra.

Sun Ra’s first album, Jazz by Sun Ra, was released in 1957 by record producer legend Tom Wilson on his short-lived Transition label. Sun Ra would form his own El Saturn Records label the same year, releasing two albums, 1957’s Super-Sonic Jazz and 1959’s Jazz in Silhouette.

He would go on to compose more than 1,000 songs, release more than 100 albums, and lead the Sun Ra Arkestra until his passing in 1993. Tenor saxophonist John Gilmore, a member since 1957, lead the band for two years until his passing. Saxophonist Marshall Allen took over leadership in ’95, a role he continues in to this day. Marshall also joined in 1957, at 33 years of age. He will turn 100 this Saturday, May 25, 2024. Amazing. Both Gilmore and Allen can be seen in this French television special from 1969:

Here is Ra’s full appearance in 1989 on the late night music TV show Night Music, hosted by David Sanborn. At the beginning, for a brief interview, David asks what his influences are. Ra responds: “The planets, the creator, mythical gods, real ones, people, flowers, everything in nature.”

Marshall Allen (in red) with the group on July 24, 2021 at Central Park’s Summerstage:

I asked multi-instrumentalist Austin Klewan, who has studied Ra’s work and has been enormously influenced by his catalogue, if he’d create Today’s Playlist, a SomethingIsHappening compendium celebrating the life of Sun Ra:

#SunRaArkestra #SunRa #MarshallAllen #Saturn #TomWilson #DavidSanborn #Jazz #News #Philadelphia #Chicago