Pianist, bandleader, arranger and Afro-Futurist Sun Ra was thought to be a decidedly non-mainstream figure in the jazz world as he directed his Arkestra throughout the last half of the 20th Century.

February is Black History Month, and each week all month, World Cafe correspondent John Morrison is joining us to talk about a different trailblazer of Black music. These mavericks took musical risks ...

Without the jazz musician, poet, and bandleader Sun Ra, the music industry would look and sound somewhat different. Countless mainstream artists have been inspired by his boundlessness and his ability ...

The outlandish persona Sun Ra created and maintained for himself over the years may sometimes distract from the adventurous intent of the music he made. Yet it is testament to his vigorous loyalty to ...

Do not expect The Criterion Collection to reissue the 1974 film Space Is The Place anytime soon. It is though, a cult classic in the truest sense of the word. Sun Ra and his Arkestra had been at the ...

Avant-garde jazz icon Sun Ra is being celebrated not for his other-worldly musical compositions, but for his poetry. In a new album from Omni Sound, titled My Words Are Music: A Celebration of Sun ...

Marshall Allen (left), age 99, leads the Sun Ra Arkestra, keeping alive the avant-garde jazz stylings of the late Sun Ra. He is considered a pioneer of afrofuturism, exploring the intersection of ...

Sun Ra, an Alabama native and pioneering force in jazz music, will be honored in his home state with a new, multi-day festival. Organizer Lee Shook has raised more than $21,000 for the May festival ...

Sun Ra and his Arkestra perform with a steel sculpture on September 23, 1978, at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, Michigan. (Leni Sinclair/Getty Images) The Sun Ra Arkestra comes to San Francisco this ...

While working on her new documentary about composer, pianist, and poet Sun Ra, Christine Turner kept words of wisdom from the visionary bandleader close at hand. “I kept these quotes on my wall above ...

I have been listening to the music of Sun Ra since the mid-1970s. His Arkestra performed somewhere in Washington, DC right around that time. I didn’t attend the show (I was broke), but a few friends ...