Today we celebrate Le Sony'r Ra, known professionally as Sun Ra, born on this day in 1914. Sun Ra was a jazz composer and bandleader, a poet, a multi-instrumentalist, and a self-proclaimed alien from Saturn on a mission for peace. His eccentric worldview was only amplified through his experimental compositions and lively, theatrical stage performances. His ideas and philosophies on human history and the cosmos made him a pioneer of a subgenre and cultural aesthetic known as Afrofuturism.
This recording finds the Sun Ra Arkestra at the 1979 North Sea Jazz Festival in The Hague, Holland performing the title song of Sun Ra's 1974 film Space Is the Place; the film is one the earliest displays of Afrofuturism. This clip captures the essence of Sun Ra's mission for peace and liberation through the magic of music and mind.