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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Questlove, Dawn Richard and a range of other musicians, writers and critics share their favorites from the experimental pianist, organist and bandleader’s wide-ranging catalog. By Marcus J. Moore ...

Legendary Afrofuturist bandleader, composer, and musician Sun Ra had an eye on the cosmos. Though he passed away in 1993, the members of his 13-person musical ensemble, the Sun Ra Arkestra, have since ...

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 ...

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 ...

1960 was one of many turning points in the career of Sun Ra. That year he moved from Chicago’s South Side to New York City. Behind, he left the idea that became the AACM, plus many inspired musicians ...