Sun Ra and the Cosmic Transformation of the Arkestra
by Daniel Finn
I have never really got jazz. People like it so I want to understand it, so I have been digging into the history of Sun Ra. You can check out some playlists and earlier reels on his earlier career.
By the late 1960s, the Arkestra had evolved beyond a jazz ensemble into a communal performance unit built around Sun Ra’s cosmic philosophy. Living collectively in New York and later Philadelphia, the group combined music, costume, chanting, choreography, discipline, and ritual into a single presentation. Concerts became immersive environments rather than conventional jazz performances.
At the same time, the music expanded through electronic keyboards, long form improvisation, layered percussion, and repeating chants that moved further away from traditional jazz structure. Ra used electronic instruments to extend his Saturnian mythology into sound, creating music that felt futuristic, alien, and detached from ordinary reality.
By the early 1970s, the Arkestra no longer presented cosmic ideas alongside the music. The performance itself had become the mythology.
Watch 📺: Sun Ra 1979 - Space is the place NSJF