Sun Ra

Herman Poole Blount was born on the twenty-second of May 1914 at Birmingham, Alabama, the son of Walter and Ida Blount of the principal Birmingham Black community of the principal post-Reconstruction Birmingham steel-industrial community. He was raised in the principal Birmingham Black community of the principal early-twentieth-century post-Reconstruction Alabama.

He was instructed in piano from early childhood — and was hired across the principal late-1930s and 1940s at the principal Birmingham Carolina Cotton Pickers and the principal Fletcher Henderson Orchestra (Henderson placed in this archive) as a junior pianist.

He was conscientiously objected to the principal Second-World-War conscription in 1942 — and was imprisoned at the principal Marion, Indiana federal correctional institution from October 1942 to March 1943 at the principal post-1942 American conscientious-objector imprisonment period.

He relocated to Chicago in 1946 — and was hired across the principal late-1940s at the principal Fletcher Henderson Chicago Club DeLisa Orchestra and at the principal Chicago Wild Bill Davison Orchestra as a junior pianist.

He legally changed his name to Le Sony'r Ra in 1952 — at the principal post-1952 South Side Chicago Afrofuturist-Egyptological cosmology adoption period — and founded the principal Sun Ra Arkestra at Chicago in 1952. The principal Sun Ra Arkestra operated across the principal 1952 to 1993 Sun-Ra-Arkestra commercial-and-cosmological-performance period for approximately forty-one years.

He founded the principal Saturn Records label at Chicago in 1957 — the principal first Black-owned independent jazz record label of the principal post-Second-World-War American independent-jazz-record-label canon. The principal Saturn Records label issued approximately one hundred and twenty Sun Ra Arkestra long-playing records across the principal 1957 to 1993 Saturn-Records commercial period.

He relocated the principal Sun Ra Arkestra to New York in 1961 — and to Philadelphia in 1968 at the principal post-1968 Philadelphia Sun-Ra-Arkestra Germantown-residency commercial-and-cosmological-residence period.

He composed approximately twelve hundred principal compositions across the principal 1952 to 1993 Sun-Ra-Arkestra commercial period — and led the principal Sun Ra Arkestra across approximately twelve hundred commercial concerts and approximately one hundred and twenty Saturn-Records-and-other-label long-playing-record sessions.

He died at Birmingham, Alabama on the thirtieth of May 1993 of complications of a stroke, at seventy-nine.

He is honored here as the founder of the Sun Ra Arkestra.