The Richmond Folk Festival has presented artists and cultural traditions from across planet Earth – from Tuva, Newfoundland, Colombia, Nigeria, Jamaica, Ireland, Iraq, Honduras, Kenya, and Armenia, ...

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 ...

A double-sided promotional flier for Sun Ra and El Saturn Records, printed in black and white on glossy paper. On the front is a photograph portrait of Sun Ra, captured from below, standing with his ...

Sun Ra Arkestra is not your grandfather’s jazz. In fact, it could be argued that Sun Ra Arkestra is not planet Earth’s jazz. Sonic innovator, poet, and philosopher Sun Ra, born Herman Poole Blount, ...

Bandleader Knoell Scott leads the Sun Ra Arkestra, performing at SFJazz on July 31, 2025. Photo by Frankie Solinsky Duryea. Sign up below to get Mission Local’s free newsletter, a daily digest of news ...

He came from Saturn, on a mission to spread peace through the power of music — or so Sun Ra claimed. "I'm really not a man, you see. I'm an angel," the legendary bandleader said in an interview in the ...

Sun Ra was born on the planet Saturn some time ago. The best accounts agree that he emerged on Earth as Herman Blount, born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1914, although Sun Ra himself always denied that ...

CHICAGO — Patrons of South Side jazz clubs in the 1950s might have noticed something a bit different about pianist Sun Ra’s big band — slowly at first, then all at once. Their sounds became more ...

Sun Ra was many things. As a pianist, composer, inventor, bandleader, philosopher and a revolutionary, Ra’s creation knew no bounds; even still, three decades after his ascent to the stars, his ...

Sun Ra’s statement, musically and spoken, is that this is a primitive world. Its practices, beliefs, religions, are uneducated, unenlightened, savage, destructive, already in the past. That’s why Sun ...

For decades, American jazz saxophonist Knoel Scott has been honoring Herman "Sonny" Blount, aka Sun Ra, the composer, keyboardist and founder of the ethereal Sun Ra Arkestra. "Either the spirit is ...

Sun Ra and His Arkestra at Balloon Theatre, Cairo, 1971. (Hartmut Geerken) By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs ...