Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Surveying the range of Sun Ra's extraordinary creativity, this book explores how the father of Afrofuturism brought "space music" to a planet in need of transformation, supporting the aspirations of black people in an inhospitable white world.



Sun Ra said he came from Saturn. Known on earth for his inventive music and extravagant stage shows, he pioneered free-form improvisation in an ensemble setting with the devoted band he called the "Arkestra." Sun Ra took jazz from the inner city to outer space, infusing traditional swing with far-out harmonies, rhythms, and sounds. Described as the father of Afrofuturism, Sun Ra created "space music" as a means of building a better future for American blacks here on earth.

A Pure Solar World: Sun Ra and the Birth of Afrofuturism offers a spirited introduction to the life and work of this legendary but underappreciated musician, composer, and poet. Paul Youngquist explores and assesses Sun Ra's wide-ranging creative output--music, public preaching, graphic design, film and stage performance, and poetry--and connects his diverse undertakings to the culture and politics of his times, including the space race, the rise of technocracy, the civil rights movement, and even space-age bachelor-pad music. By thoroughly examining the astro-black mythology that Sun Ra espoused, Youngquist masterfully demonstrates that he offered both a holistic response to a planet desperately in need of new visions and vibrations and a new kind of political activism that used popular culture to advance social change. In a nation obsessed with space and confused about race, Sun Ra aimed not just at assimilation for the socially disfranchised but even more at a wholesale transformation of American society and a more creative, egalitarian world.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Youngquist (English, Univ. of Colorado; Cyberfiction: After the Future) explores the roots of Afrofuturism through the lens of musician Sun Ra's life and work. This is not a biography; John Szwed's Space Is the Place fulfills that need. Youngquist's book is, rather, a series of meditations on the remarkable influences, people, and ideas that encompassed Ra's equally remarkable career. One chapter delves into novelist Richard Wright's Native Son in explaining how Chicago's South Side influenced Ra's emphasis on beauty and empowerment; another probes with equal depth into his wildly inventive breaking of musical rules; still another, into the importance of Egyptian mythology to Ra's space-age mythos. Much like the man's music, each chapter ranges widely while sticking to its theme. Readers unfamiliar with Ra's artistic philosophy may be as at sea with this book as a new listener might be with his music, but rewards await those who persist on both counts. In a time when mythology has largely been relegated to stories of the ancient past, Ra understood how it could function in the present as a vehicle of liberation. VERDICT For admirers of Ra and his followers, those with an interest in Afrofuturism, and jazz fans.--Genevieve -Williams, Pacific Lutheran Univ. Lib., Tacoma © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Pianist and composer Herman Poole Blount was always ahead of his time. Decades before Muhammad Ali, Blount was jailed as a conscientious objector and rejected his slave name, legally changing it to Le Sony'r Ra (Sun Ra) in 1952. Ra cut his teeth in the Fletcher Henderson big band and several early R&B groups before forming his band, the Arkestra, in the mid-1950s. Mixing big-band swing with early analog synthesizer Space Music on homemade recordings such as Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy, Ra claimed that he was a visitor from the planet Saturn who came to earth to free his disenfranchised black brothers and sisters from bondage by transporting them to a better world through music. A strict disciplinarian and prolific visionary creator, Ra combined Egyptian symbolism, lavish costumes, singers, African drummers, dancers, and fire-eaters in his extravagant avant-garde jazz performances. An academic specializing in literature and cultural studies, Youngquist presents a critical analysis of Ra's life and work that expounds on the poetry and Afrocentric mythology Ra created in order to show how Ra laid the groundwork for what became Afrofuturism. Through Youngquist's appreciation of the joyful noise Sun Ra gifted to this planet during his brief visit, readers will surely be inspired to explore Ra's extensive catalog. As Ra intoned, Space is the place! --Siegfried, David Copyright 2016 Booklist