Sun Ra: Do The Impossible
Preview: 2/20/2026 | 2m 2sVideo has Closed Captions
Discover the extraordinary life of poet, philosopher and music visionary Sun Ra.
Discover the extraordinary life of poet, philosopher and music visionary Sun Ra. With his ever-evolving collective, the Sun Ra Arkestra, he self-produced more than 200 albums, stretching the boundaries of jazz.
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Support for American Masters is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, AARP, Rosalind P. Walter Foundation, Judith and Burton Resnick, Blanche and Hayward Cirker Charitable Lead Annuity Trust, Koo...
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Sun Ra: Do The Impossible
Preview: 2/20/2026 | 2m 2sVideo has Closed Captions
Discover the extraordinary life of poet, philosopher and music visionary Sun Ra. With his ever-evolving collective, the Sun Ra Arkestra, he self-produced more than 200 albums, stretching the boundaries of jazz.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship- I believe that it is genuinely a mischaracterization to speak of one Sun Ra, right?
At any given time, there was a whole bunch more.
("Angels and Demons at Play" by The Sun Ra Arkestra) Sun Ra the virtuoso.
Teacher, band leader.
The poet, the cosmologist, historian.
The Egyptologist, community leader.
The patriarch, the mother.
And that's just scratching the surface.
("Angels and Demons at Play" continues) - He was pretty fearless, and it would take a lot as a Black man to do all the things he did with so much sovereignty, with no examples of anyone like him in existence at all.
- I think of Sun Ra as one of the great visionaries of the 20th century.
He's someone who made his life into a work of art.
Every moment of his life feels like a performance and a provocation and a prophetic statement.
You think you know where things stand, you think you know what the issues are, and then someone comes in who changes the frame of reference entirely.
("Angels and Demons at Play" continues) - Sun Ra is a pioneer in Afrofuturism.
He influenced mainstream cats.
He influenced underground cats.
Everybody.
His influence is just that vast, and he was making music for the future.
("Angels and Demons at Play" continues) - Sun Ra thought that if he could reorder our way of thinking through sound, he could prepare us for a different world.
That was his goal, right, a different world.
("Angels and Demons at Play" continues) ("Angels and Demons at Play" music fades)
How Sun Ra created his own record label, Saturn Records
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Clip: 2/20/2026 | 2m 3s | Sun Ra was one of the first Black artists to have his own record label. (2m 3s)
How Sun Ra gave thanks to the Creator
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Clip: 2/20/2026 | 2m 46s | Each day, Sun Ra wrote a piece of music solely for “the Creator.” (2m 46s)
Sun Ra’s concept of “alter destiny” was his way of changing humanity
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Clip: 2/20/2026 | 3m 29s | Sun Ra wanted to change humanity with his concept of the “alter destiny.” (3m 29s)
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Support for American Masters is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, AARP, Rosalind P. Walter Foundation, Judith and Burton Resnick, Blanche and Hayward Cirker Charitable Lead Annuity Trust, Koo...