BIRMINGHAM, Ala (WIAT) — A jazz icon who was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, but made his musical and philosophical home among "the spaceways," was recently featured on an episode of "The Simpsons."
Herman Poole Blount, better known by his stage name of "Sun Ra," died in 1993, but his image was featured on the latest "Simpsons" episode that aired Sunday. The episode, titled "Convenience Airways," featured the Simpsons making a flight to visit family in the fictional town of Pile Ridge, Louisiana.
While boarding the flight, daughter Lisa takes her sister, Maggie, to her seat, where she hopes to instill some of her own interests in her, especially jazz.
"I’ll parent you how I wanted to be parented and sibling you how I wanted to be sibled, with my 'Jazz Legends: A to Z' flashcards,'" Lisa said. "Cannonball Adderly. He was more hard bop than bebop."
Moving to the letter S, Lisa then held up a card with the image of Sun Ra, whose discordant-yet-straight-ahead jazz compositions were the foundation of his music with his band, the Arkestra, for decades.
"S is for Sun Ra," Lisa said. "He’s a little abstract, but when you get it, you’ll really get it."
Lisa then proceeds to play for her sister an unnamed song styled in the way of a typical Sun Ra piece, which Maggie proceeds to cry over.
"The Simpsons" had been on TV for less than four years when Blount died in Birmingham, but like the long-running animated show, his influence has continued throughout the years with books, films and posthumous releases. In 2022, the Arkestra was nominated for a Grammy for its work on "Swirling," an album of Sun Ra standards that had been re-recorded. It was the first nomination the group had ever received in its history, losing to "For Jimmy, Wes and Oliver" by the Christian McBride Big Band.
0 Comments