February 02, 2026
Provided image/Leni Sinclair/PBS
Experimental jazz bandleader and musician Sun Ra was known as the 'godfather of Afrofuturism.' PBS will present his biography on 'American Masters' on Friday, Feb. 20.
PBS will soon highlight a pioneering musician whose band is still based in a Germantown rowhome.
Sun Ra, the late bandleader of the Sun Ra Arkestra, is the subject of an episode of "American Masters" airing Feb. 20. The long-running biography series will examine his genre-defying sound and influence on modern stars like Janelle Monáe, George Clinton and Solange. Known for his Space Age-inspired aesthetic, Sun Ra is considered the "godfather" of the Afrofuturism artistic movement.
Though Sun Ra spent much of his career in Philadelphia, he was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and studied music at Alabama A&M University. He left college after an out-of-body experience during which, he claims, he visited Saturn. The vision spurred him to change his name from Herman Poole Blount to Le Sony’r Ra, or Sun Ra for short. Drawing on the cosmos and ancient Egypt for inspiration, he penned over 1,000 compositions and mounted elaborate experimental shows with his musical collective the Sun Ra Arkestra. They took over a three-story home at 5626 Morton St. in 1968, making it a rehearsal and communal living space.
While Sun Ra moved out of the Germantown house prior to his 1993 death, other members of the Arkestra continued to call it home. The current leader of the band, 101-year-old Marshall Allen, is still there today. It is now known as the Arkestral Institute of Sun Ra and is a designated historic landmark.
Allen and other band members will be featured in the upcoming "American Masters" episode "Sun Ra: Do the Impossible." Viewers can watch it on PBS stations at 9 p.m. on Feb. 20, or stream it through the station's app or website. Check out the trailer below:
Follow Kristin & PhillyVoice on Twitter: @kristin_hunt
| @thePhillyVoice
Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice
Have a news tip? Let us know.
