Space Is The Place: The Lives And Times Of Sun Ra

Space Is The Place: The Lives And Times Of Sun Ra
by John F. Szwed

Space Is The Place: The Lives And Times Of Sun Ra
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Book Summary Information

Author: John F. Szwed
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1998-08-22
ISBN: 0306808552
Number of pages: 496
Publisher: Da Capo Press

Book Reviews of Space Is The Place: The Lives And Times Of Sun Ra

Book Review: The Definitive Biography of "Mr. Mystery"
Summary: 5 Stars

John Szwed's "Space is the Place" is a monumental achievement. Sun Ra is arguably the most difficult figure on whom a person could possibly write a biography, since throughout his life he denied that he was even from Earth. This makes Szwed's careful analysis of his formative years in Alabama, replete with factual details, all the more compelling and welcome. What soon becomes apparent is that Sun Ra was often a misunderstood musician and composer who was one of the few artists in jazz history that encompassed every generic possibility of jazz in his art. In Ra's music, you heard everything from swing, be-bop, hard-bop, free-jazz, and even traces and significations of more popular musical forms (i.e., doo-wop, blues, and even disco in the late-70s). And he not only drew from these genres, but in many ways helped to shape them, by forming new and revising old musical trends. One can only hope that the world will eventually be graced with biographies of Albert Ayler and Cecil Taylor that are as carefully researched as Szwed's study of Sun Ra.

Szwed's book also delves deeply into the space-influenced philosophy of Sun Ra and its emphasis on "discipline" and "precision." While Szwed features direct quotes when possible, he also paraphrases the philosophy of Sun Ra frequently. His analysis could have gone much farther into Ra's critique of Christianity and his use of language. At one point, he mentions that both Ra and Nietzsche "unflinchingly assaulted received Christianity" (p.383), but he does not extend his analysis further. (It would have been interesting to compare how both artists used the theme of "overcoming" in their art, or perhaps a discussion of the similarities in their critiques of democracy.) Szwed also could have drawn a stronger connection between Ra and the European Romantics that he occasionally mentions, including William Blake. Both figures were visionaries who tried to break their "mind forged manacles" and reach a higher state of innocence by using aesthetics as a catalyst to reach transcendental experiences.

It also would have been useful to analyze more thoroughly Sun Ra's use of binary oppositions in his speeches and in his interrogation of concepts such as "Truth," "Righteousness," and "Death." Despite Sun Ra's truly amazing ability to parse the English language in his lectures, often major logical fallacies emerged in his approach to such matters (although Sun Ra, at some point, probably deconstructed the term "Logic" as well). It would have been nice for Szwed to at least acknowledge the limitations of Sun Ra's thought along with discussing its strengths. However, Szwed's book is the best study of one of the most important thinkers and artists of the "omniverse age" and should be required reading for anyone interested in jazz music.

Summary of Space Is The Place: The Lives And Times Of Sun Ra

Sun Ra, a.k.a. Herman Poole "Sonny" Blount (1914?1993), has been hailed as "one of the great big-band leaders, pianists, and surrealists of jazz" (New York Times) and as "the missing link between Duke Ellington and Public Enemy" (Rolling Stone). Composer, keyboardist, bandleader, philosopher, poet, and self-proclaimed extraterrestrial from Saturn, Sun Ra led his "Intergalactic Arkestra" of thirty-plus musicians in a career that ranged from boogie-woogie and swing to be-bop, free jazz, fusion, and New Age music. This definitive biography reveals the life, philosophy, and musical growth of one of the twentieth century's greatest avant-garde musicians.

Born Herman Poole Blount in Alabama in 1914, he reinvented himself in the 1950s as Sun Ra, the great surrealist of jazz whose free-form performances with his Arkestra amply justified the description "'jspace music." His mystical beliefs were equally avant-garde; Yale professor John Szwed sympathetically explains some fairly far-out notions as "driven by a hunger for totality that only music could express." Szwed recovers the biographical facts Sun Ra was often at pains to obscure, without losing sight of the overriding role imagination played in this visionary life.

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