Sun Ra gets the American Masters treatment in new PBS documentary

Legendary jazz pioneer Sun Ra, the pride of Germantown and Outer Space, is the subject of a new documentary. Directed by Christine Turner, Sun Ra: Do the Impossible is slated to air on February 20th, as part of PBS’s American Masters series. Like the man himself, the trailer is somewhat elliptical:

According to the filmmakers, here’s more info:

Poet, philosopher, Egyptologist, bandleader. Jazz visionary Sun Ra was all of these—and more. With his ever-evolving band the Sun Ra Arkestra, he produced more than 200 albums, stretching the boundaries of free-form jazz while weaving ancient Egypt, interstellar metaphors, and scientific musings into a singular musical and spiritual vision of Afrofuturism that continues to reverberate across generations. Director Christine Turner takes us on an illuminating journey through the life of this multi-faceted artist, gracefully balancing recollections from the Arkestra’s still-devout band members and dancers with insightful interviews from music scholars, and unforgettable film and performance footage of Sun Ra himself. The result is a portrait—informative, inspiring, and mind-bending—of a man whose audacious vision, otherworldly imagination, and uncompromising artistry helped shape not only the sound of jazz, but the cultural landscape of the 20th century and beyond.

Here’s Turner talking about the film:

This, of course, is not the first Sun Ra film to be made: Space Is The Place, the Afrofuturist science fiction film made in 1972, remains a cult classic. There’s also the very Philly-adjacent Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise, from 1980, by documentarian Robert Mugge. But it is the first feature length documentary to be made about him in a long time, and definitely the first since a whole new generation has discovered his work. Thanks to the ongoing presence of Marshall Allen, the Arkestra, and the almost innumerable Sun Ra reissues to come out across the new peak vinyl era, Sun Ra may finally be achieving that most alien thing of all: Immortality.