PBS will soon highlight a pioneering musician whose band is still based in a Germantown rowhome.<\/p>\n
Sun Ra, the late bandleader of the Sun Ra Arkestra, is the subject of an episode of “American Masters” airing Feb. 20. The long-running biography series will examine his genre-defying sound and influence on modern stars like\u00a0Janelle Mon\u00e1e, George Clinton and Solange. Known for his Space Age-inspired aesthetic, Sun Ra is considered the “godfather” of the Afrofuturism artistic movement.<\/p>\n
MORE:\u00a0Philly had three winners at the Grammy Awards \u2014 Will Yip, Andre Harris and Christian McBride<\/a><\/p>\n Though Sun Ra spent much of his career in Philadelphia, he was born in\u00a0Birmingham, Alabama, and studied music at Alabama A&M University. He left college after an out-of-body experience during which, he claims, he visited Saturn. The vision spurred him to change his name from\u00a0Herman Poole Blount to Le Sony\u2019r Ra, or Sun Ra for short. Drawing on the cosmos and ancient Egypt for inspiration, he penned over 1,000 compositions and mounted elaborate experimental shows with his musical collective the Sun Ra Arkestra. They took over a three-story home at 5626 Morton St. in 1968, making it a rehearsal and communal living space.\u00a0<\/p>\n While Sun Ra moved out of the Germantown house prior to his 1993 death, other members of the Arkestra continued to call it home. The current leader of the band, 101-year-old Marshall Allen, is still there today. It is now known as the\u00a0Arkestral Institute of Sun Ra and is a designated historic landmark<\/a>.<\/p>\n Allen and other band members will be featured in the upcoming “American Masters” episode “Sun Ra: Do the Impossible.” Viewers can watch it on PBS stations at 9 p.m. on Feb. 20, or stream it through the station’s app or website. Check out the trailer below:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Follow Kristin & PhillyVoice on Twitter: @kristin_hunt
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