Sun Ra’s ‘arrival’ on Earth, his early years in Alabama, the music of the south that would be a life-long influence on his own work, and his move to Chicago as part of the ‘great migration’ of African Americans out of the south.
Chicago opened up a new creative life for Sun Ra and he made some of the most surprising music of his career during his formative years in Chicago, arranging for big bands, blues singers and doo wop groups, and playing at strip clubs and Black-and-Tan theatres before his journey into space age jazz took off.
