WKCR is excited to announce a special 24-hour broadcast for May 22nd celebrating the 109th anniversary of the arrival of Sun Ra (1914-1993). The special broadcast will preempt all regularly-scheduled Monday shows.

A visionary, multi-directional artist of the highest degree, Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount) began his life in Birmingham, Alabama, where he studied under the legendary band director John T. "Fess" Whatley at Industrial High School and quickly began to demonstrate his prodigious musical abilities. From 1934 to 1952, Sun Ra accumulated a wide range of professional experiences in both Birmingham and Chicago (where he moved in 1945), working with figures such as Wynonie Harris, Fletcher Henderson, and Coleman Hawkins before founding his famed Arkestra, which he would lead until his passing in 1993. During his roughly forty year leadership of the Arkestra, with whom he relocated to New York in 1961 and Philadelphia in 1968, Sun Ra and the band charted an immense range of sounds and spaces, tackling straight-ahead compositions and vast electronic soundscapes with equal jubilance whether at Slugs' Saloon or festivals in Europe. While the musicians in the Arkestra often changed, several crucial contributors stayed with the group for many years such as John Gilmore, Ronnie Boykins, Pat Patrick, and Marshall Allen (who currently leads the band). Although rare, Sun Ra also made a handful of special sideman appearances while leading the Arkestra, recording with musicians such as Walt Dickerson and Billy Bang. A perpetual trailblazer and explorer whose music and ideas have inspired artists and movements across a wide spectrum, from Afrofuturism, to the MC5, to Lady Gaga, Sun Ra was (and continues to be) one of the great artists of this world (and of many others).

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