He said he came from Saturn, and after a while the question stopped mattering. Born Herman Blount in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1914, Sun Ra led his Arkestra for four decades in Chicago, New York and finally Philadelphia, mixing big band swing, advanced bop, free playing and chants about outer space, with costumes and a mythology that looked back to ancient Egypt and forward to science fiction. Under the trappings sat a real innovator: he was among the first jazz musicians to use electric pianos, clavioline and Moog synthesizers, and he released most of his music himself on his own Saturn label, hand-painted covers included.