News & Updates — Sun Ra

Happy birthday to tenor saxophone hero John Gilmore. A long-time member of Sun Ra's Arkestra, a major influence on John Coltrane and an icon Blowing Out Of Chicago. Gilmore started playing clarinet at 14 and tenor sax at 17 and he played with Earl Hines before joining Sun Ra's fledgling Arkestra in '53. He stayed with Ra for over forty years, recording on every single Arkestra record until '95 (including most of the legendary Ra-produced doo-wop sides). He brought a gifted and harmonically advanced style and could play sweet to ferocious, but bop & blues was always his main language....

Happy birthday to Billy Bang, avant-jazz violinist of the NYC downtown loft jazz scene of the '70s & '80s and beyond. A unique presence, his style merges contemporary "classical"/avant-garde, fire music/free-jazz, blues, swing and funk and he always chose great sideman. He could work well as a solo performer, in duos, jazz combos, as part of an orchestra or with dancers (he himself was a great dancer onstage). Born William Walker in Alabama, he grew up in the Bronx & Harlem. He was given a violin because he was small. He learned to play it as a youth but quit...

One of the fathers of rock & roll and a top blues shouter and dancer in his day, here is the guy Elvis Presley stole his stage moves from. From Omaha, Wynonie Harris got big locally in the '30s and took his show on the road: Kansas City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Harlem, Nashville and Texas were some key touch-down points. In '44 he joined Lucky Millinder's band and "Who Threw The Whiskey In The Well" was a #1 hit in '45. After that success he signed as an artist with Philo and hired Johnny Otis to put his band together, which...

I love jazz violin and Stuff Smith was a major one. He came out of the swing era but played a Louie Armstrong-influenced progressive style with beboppers and even with Sun Ra, inspiring many jazz violinists since, including Billy Bang. And he was the first person to use electronic amplification for it. From Cleveland, Hezekiah Leroy Gordon Smith learned the instrument from his father before studying classical music. At 15 he toured with the Aunt Jemima Revue minstrel show. He played jazz professionally in Dallas starting in '26 and NYC starting in '35 after stints with Jelly Roll Morton and a...

There are so many interesting artists born on July 15 that it is impossible in my schedule to write pieces about them. So here are some shorties, along with a video or two for each. --Francis Bebey / July 15, 1929 - May 28, 2001 This unique Cameroonian composer and his interesting DIY synth-pop crossed with traditional music has been justly making new fans in recent years. --James Jacson / July 15, 1932 - Aug 10, 1997 Happy cosmic birthday to James Jacson, one of my favorite characters from Sun Ra's Arkestra. Jacson is the one who was instructed to...