Jazz in Silhouette by Sun Ra

This album cover for Jazz in Silhouette by Sun Ra and His Arkestra from 1959 was credited to HP Corbissero, a name that some sources like the Pathways to Unknown Worlds exhibition catalogue suggest may have been a pseudonym for Sun Ra himself. This sci-fi and surrealist illustration captures the early Afrofuturist impulse to imagine new futures through sound and image. Released on Sun Ra’s independent Saturn label, the hand drawn cosmic scene helped bring about the myth of Sun Ra as a “space age prophet”, challenging mainstream narratives of Black identity and creativity. The organic and inconsistent type layout and composition mirror the experimental elements of his music.