Act Like You Know: Sun Ra

hide captionSun Ra's music sounds like it was intercepted from another world.

Sun Ra's music sounds like it was intercepted from another world.

Records show that 100 years ago today, a boy named Herman Poole Blount was born in Birmingham, Ala. Between that moment and his passing in 1993, the man nicknamed "Sonny" developed huge musical talent, synthesized an all-encompassing Afro-futurist worldview and grew into the name Le Sony'r Ra Sun Ra for short. And he lives on as a cultural hero at the intersection of flamboyant outsider and self-made genius.

For a man for whom outer space was a guiding metaphor, he was a lot of different things on Earth. Here's a short list:

Behind his esoteric parables, contradictions and mythologies, there's at least one constant. Sun Ra was often recognized as one of the hardest-working musicians anywhere he went and surely one of the most original.

His is a huge oeuvre that people spend lifetimes exploring. In fact, the Sun Ra Archives are re-releasing 21 major albums remastered for iTunes for his centennial arrival date just a fraction of a discography which some historians estimate at over 180 records. Here's a quick introduction to that catalog in five essential tracks.

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Act Like You Know: Sun Ra