Born Herman Poole Blount, Sun Ra was a big jazz composer in the Chicago jazz scene in the 1940s. His adopted name, Le Sony’r Ra, comes from Ra, the Egyptian Sun God. He adopted this name to reject his slave name. Sun Ra’s jazz music was very experimental and included free improvisation and electronic elements. This type of futuristic blending is what he was known for. The other types of music influencing his style included ragtime and early New Orleans hot jazz, to swing music, bebop, free jazz and fusion. He is most well known for his own style of free jazz that he called “space jazz” or “cosmic jazz”.