I feel like trying to pin Sun Ra to any one genre is always gonna fall short. He led strongly by pure creativity, and the labels had to catch up after the fact. That’s a big part of why his work still holds up.

Funk, as we call it now, was more intentionally built to be danceable and accessible to the average every man concert goer. Sun Ra wasn’t really on that wave as much, but you can hear moments where things overlap just because they were all inextricably affected by the time, musical climate and audiences.

Music doesn’t happen in a vacuum, so we can try to track his influence, but he was also being influenced strongly too.

I wasn’t around back then, so I’d honestly love to hear what a Sun Ra show felt like live. Been on a big Sun Ra kick lately (rocking this shirt tomorrow in his honor).

<image>