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 ...

Sun Ra is best known for the extensive archive of recordings he made with his Arkestra, and most Ra enthusiasts are probably first attracted to his work by the sui generis imagination he brought to ...

The Philadelphia bandleader didn't always connect with traditional jazz audiences, but he found a second home doing so in Baltimore. A new double album revisit a show he and his "Arkestra" gave there.

Avant-garde jazz icon Sun Ra is being celebrated not for his other-worldly musical compositions, but for his poetry. In a new album from Omni Sound, titled My Words Are Music: A Celebration of Sun ...

Few musicians have been as delightfully and fascinatingly weird as Sun Ra. He was born Herman Poole Blount, changed his name to honor the Egyptian god of the sun, believed he was an angelic being from ...

Why is Christian Science in our name? Our name is about honesty. The Monitor is owned by The Christian Science Church, and we’ve always been transparent about that. The Church publishes the Monitor ...

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 ...

For the previous entry in the Red Hot and Ra series, the long-running AIDS activist group Red Hot Organization tapped bassist Meshell Ndegeocello to craft a gripping ...

Hugh Ragin, as brilliant a trumpeter as he is a dedicated educator, greeted me at Englewood’s Colorado Jazz Workshop on a Saturday afternoon in January. He had just finished a day’s worth of ...

The Maryland Film Festival returns to the Parkway Theatre next week for five days of thought-provoking films and related ...

In certain ways, Marshall Allen has passed the time during the pandemic like most of us have. He leaves his house just to take quick strolls around the neighborhood for some fresh air and exercise. As ...