A mural depicting the groundbreaking Sun Ra Arkestra will be unveiled in a ceremony, Saturday, June 13, on a wall of the October Gallery Museum, about a mile from the jazz collective’s longtime home base in Germantown.

The event will include a brief live performance by the Arkestra along with free food, speakers, and a Sun Ra-themed deejay set by music journalist Marcus J. Moore. The ceremony will be noon to 3 p.m at 6349 Greene Street with the Arkestra scheduled to perform at 2 p.m.

Artists Ernel Martinez and Keir Johnston designed the artwork, a Mural Arts Philadelphia project titled “In the Orbit of Ra.” Arkestra band members and scholars also helped with the design.

Sun Ra was born Herman Blount on May 22, 1914, in Montgomery, Ala. He became a popular jazz musician in Chicago during the 1940s. He spent the early years of his career in New York City before coming in Philadelphia. He died in 1993.

From the 1950s on, Sun Ra, who often said he was born on the planet Saturn, led bands that played his own music, which, according to britannica.com, included the tympani, electric piano and flute, instruments then rare in jazz. His music became increasingly exotic with the addition of African and Latin American instruments and elements.

His band, which included dancers, has been known for its avant-garde eclecticism, innovative instrumentation and theatricality. Blount took the name Sun Ra after the Egyptian sun god and is considered a pioneer of Afrofuturism.

Recent lineups of the band consist of more than one dozen members. They were nominated for a Grammy Award this year for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album for their 2024 album, “Lights on a Satellite.” The Arkestra now draws from a range of musical genres: swing, rock ‘n’ roll, Chicago blues, improvisation and electronic music. They still tour regularly, usually on multi-city runs and at museums, festivals and jazz venues. When the Arkestra performs, band members wear Afrofuturist-inspired outfits dominated by colorful capes and headdresses.

The mural is several blocks from the rowhouse at 5626 Morton St. where Sun Ra lived from 1968 until before his death. The three-story property was added to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places in 2022. It’s known as the Arkestral Institute of Sun Ra and still serves as a home for current members of the collective. Marshall Allen, current leader of the Arkestra, said in a 2014 interview, “This is a very special house not only for the Arkestra but also for American history.”

“Sun Ra lived in East Germantown with the Arkestra,” said Frank Luzi, of Luzi Media, which is handling the event. He was “composing and rehearsing a body of work that reshaped American experimental music and performance. The Arkestra continues to live and rehearse on Morton Street, carrying forward a seven-decade legacy that still draws audiences around the world. The mural places that living legacy in public view at the scale it deserves, rooted in the neighborhood that sustained it.”

Alto saxophonist Marshall Allen, who celebrated his 102nd birthday on May 25, still lives in the Morton Street home and is also the only surviving original member of Sun Ra Arkestra as well as the ensemble’s leader. He’s been with the group for 68 years. The structure was built in 1880.

Allen took over as the band’s leading member in 1995 when tenor saxophonist, clarinetist and drummer John Gilmore died. Gilmore was a major influence on legendary saxophonist John Coltrane, who took lessons from Gilmore and lived in Philadelphia from 1943 to 1962.

In 2009, Philadelphia’s Institute of Contemporary Art hosted an exhibition of the Sun Ra group’s history and artistry. The PBS series “American Masters” aired an episode in February chronicling Sun Ra’s life and musical legacy.

Sun Ra Arkestra has a gigantic catalogue of recorded music, with more than 100 full-length albums. Many of the group’s recordings were pressed from live performances in Philadelphia and created on Morton Street.

Johnston, one of the two artists who created the Sun Ra mural, said in an 1 2025 interview with The Inquirer, “The choice of being an artist is made for you. I didn’t want to be somebody that chases the elites … I felt that art should be open and available to everyone. I do public work, and I work with young artists and young students of color.”

The museum parking lot will include limited seating for some attendees.

Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com.