Sun Ra Arkestra returns soon in Chicago, a legacy kept alive by a 97-year-old bandmate. ‘His music needs to be heard’
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 far-out, the synthy buzz of claviolines and Wurlitzers replacing Ra’s usual uprights. Bit by bit, their clothes changed, black coats and ties refracting into a spectrum of headdresses and capes.
Then, Ra — born Herman “Sonny” Blount in Birmingham, Alabama, where he lived before moving to Chicago in 1946 — started telling people he was from Saturn.
As the years went on, it was hard not to take Ra at his word. The original compositions and arrangements he played with his Arkestra, as he called that big band founded in Chicago, didn’t sound like anything else. They still don’t.
But just as subtly as they touched down on the South Side, the Arkestra disappeared. In 1961, the band left town to play in Montreal. They never returned to Chicago. The Arkestra
