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Space Is The Place: The Lives And Times Of Sun Ra | 
 enlarge | Author: John F. Szwed
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Category: Book
List Price: $21.00
Buy New: $11.62
You Save: $9.38 (45%)
New (10) Used (15) from $6.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 229750
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 496
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 5.7 x 1.2
ISBN: 0306808552
Dewey Decimal Number: 781.65092
EAN: 9780306808555
ASIN: 0306808552
Publication Date: August 21, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
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.
Product Description
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"). This biography of Sun Ra is "as trippy and entertaining as the great jazz genius himself" ("Details"). 20 photos.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
The Sun Shines Brightly November 6, 2006
Sun Ra has remained one of the most misunderstood musicians of our time. And in the case of many music geniuses, Sun Ra would keep the critics and fans at arm's length, but welcome musicians into his world of philosophy and art.
Author John F. Szwed does an almost impossible task of peeling of the layers of myth and disinformation to present the real life, struggles and triumphs of Sun Ra. Szwed brilliantly weaves through the situations which shaped his life while growing up in Birmingham, Ala., the highs and exteme lows in the jazz world of Chicago and New York City & how persistence finally yielded an understanding - on various levels - from fans who also wanted to challenge the barriers erected in the music industry.
The philosophy of Sun Ra is explained and Szwed shows how it influenced every facet of his life on and off stage. I strongly believe Szwed ends any debate on how Sun Ra lived his life and what he demanded from those around him.
This must have been a very difficult undertaking for Szwed, but his outstanding research and balanced reporting yields a fantastic biography on a person we can continue to learn from.
 An erudite effort for a daunting task May 31, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Frankly, Sun Ra seemed to go out of his way to make a biography pretty much impossible. Professor Szwed is to be commended for his effort, though I think at times the professor takes Ra and himself too seriously. It is a hip jazz disease that Ra played off of brilliantly and would have been amused by.
What is of value is you get some idea of the depth of this fellow, the complexity, the seriousness and simultaneous playfull nature. In being too deep or altogether dismissive of him, we missed the amazing creations.
The book confirmed my evaluation of Ra's heart and motivation. A few years prior to reading this book, I went with my family to an assembly of jazz musicians who processed, played outrageous free jazz, and did this while listening to an old woman recite Sun Ra's poetry while "dancing" and "singing" in Wichita. My young daughter was squealing with delight and loving the wild affair. The adults were being so "into it", solemn, and so serious. This book confirmed to me she was likely the only one Sun Ra would have concluded got it. He probably would have commenced to direct the band to improvise off of her squeals.
He from above probably was smiling and particularly happy that a little white girl "understood the vibrations" and would have been encouraged for the future of the earth which he was convinced would take all the races working in harmony to rescue.
equal to its subject February 5, 2005
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Great book.
If you have an interest in who Sun Ra was you ought to read this. Not a lot of musical analysis, but an extrordinary explanation of the ideas and philosophies behind it. Good job on the life as well.
I wish the highly-praised Lewis Porter Coltrane biography was a quarter as good as this.
A stunning masterpiece May 9, 2004
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
This is, simply put, the greatest jazz biography I have ever read. Sun Ra is a complex and fascinating character, and Szwed's narrative more than lives up to the challenge. The most impressive thing about this book is that Szwed places Ra's, shall we say, bizarre beliefs in a context that makes him seem brilliant, lonely, compassionate, and vulnerable--in a word, human. Interwoven with the facts of Ra's life, his childhood, his musical development, his status as 60s cult icon, Szwed goes into long, fascinating digressions on the roots of Ra's beliefs--from ancient Egyptian mythology to the Bible. After reading this book, it was as if a whole world had been opened to me, and I now enjoy and appreciate Ra's art so much more. I wish I could convey how much this book moved me...it is more than the best jazz biography I have ever read, it is one of the best biographies I have ever read, period. If you are at all interested in Sun Ra, experimental jazz, or modern mythmaking, then DO NOT hesitate to pick this book up.
Fine Explanation of a Complex Phenomenon June 10, 2002
15 out of 16 found this review helpful
The book is well-written and does what it sets out to do - explain who Sun Ra was and what he was doing. This is no mean feat. Sun Ra was a man of many interests and beliefs, of whom many misconceptions exist. Even most of his fans (I've been listening to Ra's music for about 10 years now) will probably learn much and gain tremendous perspective on him from this book (I certainly did).The book's story is one of a man with artistic genius within him, who probably could have been a millionaire and musical "star" - who chose to do other things instead. Here is the unusual story of what he did and why he did it. There is room for another book in the world on Ra's discography, that traces the patterns, forms, and themes of his vast catalogue of recorded music. There is room in the world for a book that tells the stories of the members of Ra's Arkestra. But this is not those books, this is the first logical step in studies : an explanation of Sun Ra himself. It's a difficult job very well done.
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