This is FRESH AIR. Jazz historian Kevin Whitehead is going to review a newly released recording of a concert he attended in 1978 by pianist Sun Ra and his Arkestra. Kevin says the colorful ...

Sun Ra's 1978 performance at Baltimore's Left Bank Jazz Society ballroom had something for everyone. The great man and his Arkestra, along with singer June Tyson and dancers, performed jazz from its ...

At best, any casual music consumer would find the avant-garde work of musician, composer, and bandleader Sun Ra transportive.

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.

Sun Ra aficionados seem to possess an insatiable appetite for archival recordings of the ever-evolving ensembles of the pianist, composer and bandleader. Born Helman Poole Blount, in Alabama, in 1914, ...