Editing Sun Ra (section)

===Chicago years (1945–1961)===
In Chicago, Blount quickly found work, notably with blues singer [[Wynonie Harris]], with whom he made his recording debut on two 1946 singles, ''Dig This Boogie''/''Lightning Struck the Poorhouse'',<ref>{{cite web |last1=Harris |first1=Wynonie (Mr. Blues) |title=Dig This Boogie |url=https://archive.org/details/78_dig-this-boogie_wynonie-mr-blues-harris-harris_gbia0069119a |website=Internet Archive |publisher=Bullet Recording |access-date=25 May 2019}}</ref> and ''My Baby's Barrelhouse''/''Drinking By Myself''. ''Dig This Boogie'' was also Blount's first recorded piano solo. He performed with the locally successful [[Lil Green]] band and played bump-and-grind music for months in [[Calumet City]] [[strip club]]s.{{cn|date=February 2024}}

In August 1946, Blount earned a lengthy engagement at the [[Club DeLisa]] under bandleader and composer [[Fletcher Henderson]]. Blount had long admired Henderson, but Henderson's fortunes had declined (his band was now made of up middling musicians rather than the stars of earlier years) in large part because of his instability, due to Henderson's long-term injuries from a car accident. Henderson hired Blount as pianist and arranger, replacing [[Marl Young]]. Blount's arrangements initially showed a degree of [[bebop]] influence, but the band members resisted the new music, despite Henderson's encouragement.{{cn|date=February 2024}}

In 1948, Blount performed briefly in a trio with saxophonist [[Coleman Hawkins]] and violinist [[Stuff Smith]], both preeminent musicians. There are no known recordings of this trio, but home recordings of two different Blount-Smith duets from 1953 appear on ''[[Sound Sun Pleasure!!]]'' and ''[[Deep Purple (Sun Ra album)|Deep Purple]]'', and one of Sun Ra's final recordings in 1992 was a rare sideman appearance on violinist [[Billy Bang]]'s ''[[A Tribute to Stuff Smith|Tribute to Stuff Smith]]''.{{cn|date=February 2024}}

In addition to enabling professional advancement, what he encountered in Chicago changed Blount's personal outlook. The city was a center of African-American [[political activism]] and fringe movements, with [[Nation of Islam|Black Muslims]], [[Black Hebrew Israelites|Black Hebrews]], and others [[proselytizing]], debating, and printing leaflets or books. Blount absorbed it all and was fascinated with the city's many [[ancient Egypt]]ian-styled buildings and monuments. He read books such as [[George G.M. James]]'s ''Stolen Legacy'' (which argued that classical [[Greek philosophy]] had its roots in ancient Egypt). Blount concluded that the accomplishments and history of Africans had been systematically suppressed and denied by [[European culture]]s.{{cn|date=February 2024}}

By 1952, Blount was leading the Space Trio with drummer Tommy "Bugs" Hunter and saxophonist [[Pat Patrick (musician)|Pat Patrick]], two of the most accomplished musicians he had known. They performed regularly, and Sun Ra began writing more advanced songs.<ref name="Patrick_Grove">{{Citation |last1=Hazell |first1=Ed |last2=Kernfeld |first2=Barry |date=2003 |title=Patrick, Pat [Laurdine Kenneth, Jr.] |publisher=Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.J347700 }}</ref>

On October 20, 1952, Blount legally changed his name to Le Sony'r Ra. Sun Ra claimed<ref>Szwed (1998), p. 4.</ref> to have always been uncomfortable with his birth name of Blount. He considered it a [[slave name]], from a family that was not his. David Martinelli suggested that his change was similar to "[[Malcolm X]] and [[Muhammad Ali]]... [dropping] their slave names in the process of attaining a new self-awareness and self-esteem".<ref name=martinelli>{{cite web |url=http://www.ethnomusic.ucla.edu/staff/martinelli/Sun%20Ra.htm |title=The Cosmic-Myth Equations of Sun Ra |access-date=2008-05-30 |last=Martinelli |first=David A. |year=1991 |publisher=[[University of California, Los Angeles|UCLA]] Department of Ethnomusicology |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080222063541/http://www.ethnomusic.ucla.edu/staff/martinelli/Sun%20Ra.htm <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date=2008-02-22}}</ref>

Patrick left the group to move to Florida with his new wife. His friend [[John Gilmore (musician)|John Gilmore]] (tenor sax) joined the group, and [[Marshall Allen]] (alto sax) soon followed. Patrick was in and out of the group until the end of his life, but Allen and Gilmore were the two most devoted members of the Arkestra. In fact, Gilmore is often criticized for staying with Sun Ra for over forty years when he could have been a strong leader in his own right.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Jazz: the Basics|last=Meeder|first=Christopher|pages=148}}</ref> Saxophonist [[James Spaulding]] and trombonist [[Julian Priester]] also recorded with Sun Ra in Chicago, and both went on to careers of their own. The Chicago tenor [[Von Freeman]] also did a short stint with the band of the early 1950s.<ref>Litweiler, John (1984). ''The Freedom Principle: Jazz after 1958.'' Da Capo, p. 141. {{ISBN|0-306-80377-1}}</ref>

In Chicago, Sun Ra met [[Alton Abraham]], a precociously intelligent teenager and something of a kindred spirit. He became the Arkestra's biggest booster and one of Sun Ra's closest friends. Both men felt like outsiders and shared an interest in [[Western esotericism|esoterica]]. Abraham's strengths balanced Ra's shortcomings: though he was a disciplined bandleader, Sun Ra was somewhat introverted and lacked business sense (a trait that haunted his entire career). Abraham was outgoing, well-connected, and practical. Though still a teenager, Abraham eventually became Sun Ra's ''[[de facto]]'' business manager: he booked performances, suggested musicians for the Arkestra, and introduced several popular songs into the group's repertoire. Ra, Abraham and others formed a sort of [[Book discussion club|book club]] to trade ideas and discuss the offbeat topics that so intrigued them. This group printed a number of pamphlets and broadsides explaining their conclusions and ideas. Some of these were collected by critic [[John Corbett (writer)|John Corbett]] and Anthony Elms as ''The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's [[Polemic]]al Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets'' (2006).{{cn|date=February 2024}}

In the mid-1950s, Sun Ra and Abraham formed an [[independent record label]] that was generally known as [[El Saturn Records]]. (It had several name variations.) Initially focused on 45 rpm singles by Sun Ra and artists related to him, Saturn Records issued two full-length albums during the 1950s: ''[[Super-Sonic Jazz]]'' (1957) and ''[[Jazz In Silhouette]]'' (1959). Producer [[Tom Wilson (producer)|Tom Wilson]] was the first to release a Sun Ra album, through his independent label [[Transition Records]] in 1957, entitled ''[[Jazz by Sun Ra]]''.<ref name="earthlies">Campbell, Robert L., & Trent, Christopher. ''The Earthly Recordings of Run Ra'' (2nd edition). Redwood, NY: Cadence Jazz Books, 2000. {{ISBN|978-1-881993-35-3}}</ref> During this era, Sun Ra recorded the first of dozens of singles as a band-for-hire backing a range of [[doo wop]] and [[Rhythm and blues|R&B]] singers; several dozen of these were reissued in a two-CD set, ''The Singles'', by Evidence Records.{{cn|date=February 2024}}

In the late 1950s, Sun Ra and his band began to wear outlandish, Egyptian-styled or [[science fiction]]-themed costumes and [[headdress]]es. These costumes had multiple purposes: they expressed Sun Ra's fascination with ancient Egypt and the [[space age]], they provided a recognizable uniform for the Arkestra, they provided a new identity for the band onstage, and comic relief. (Sun Ra thought ''[[avant garde]]'' musicians typically took themselves far too seriously.){{cn|date=February 2024}}