Musician, philosopher and poet Herman 'Sonny' Blount, a.k.a. Sun Ra, developed an eccentric oeuvre from 1952 on with his big band Arkastra and created an uproar in the jazz world with his liberated outlook on music. Sun Ra blended musical forms from other cultures with his big band's bop repertoire, but went on to focus mainly on dynamic hybrids of free jazz, world music, funk, soul and sounds from his own primitive electronic moog keyboard. Many musicians from the underground pop and dance scene nowadays find an enormous source of inspiration in Sun Ra's eclectic music. At the festival, bands like Recloose, Carl Craig's Detroit Experience and the Jimi Tenor Big Band will display their view on this visionary's music. These names can also be found on the Sun Ra tribute CD The Myth lives on, recently released on the Kindred Spirits label by the Amsterdam DJ KC the Funkaholic, who will also be participating in the Sun Ra program. Jimi Tenor (his real name is Lassi Lehto) is almost as self-willed as his great example Sun Ra. In 1994 he had a techno hit with the track Take Me Baby and he recorded his first CD in his kitchen. Later, for his masterwork Out of Nowhere, he worked with a 40-headed Polish symphony orchestra, music he then processed extensively on the computer. His latest CD, Higher Planes, seems to prove his artistic maturity.
