This ground-breaking biography is as much about Sun Ra's music as it is about his passionate, often wildly unorthodox views on the galaxy, black people and spiritual matters. With the various incarnations of his inimitable Arkestra, his repertoire ranged from boogie-woogie to swing to be-bop to fusion to New Age, and his influence extended throughout the jazz and rock worlds. While Sun Ra made a lifelong effort to obscure many of the facts of his early years, he did acknowledge that he was born on the planet Saturn. John ...
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This ground-breaking biography is as much about Sun Ra's music as it is about his passionate, often wildly unorthodox views on the galaxy, black people and spiritual matters. With the various incarnations of his inimitable Arkestra, his repertoire ranged from boogie-woogie to swing to be-bop to fusion to New Age, and his influence extended throughout the jazz and rock worlds. While Sun Ra made a lifelong effort to obscure many of the facts of his early years, he did acknowledge that he was born on the planet Saturn. John Szwed has succeeded brilliantly in delving into and evoking the life and work of this extraordinary artist.
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Add this copy of Space Is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra to cart. $18.41, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2020 by Duke University Press.
There are few biographies of Sun Ra on the market. This is certainly the definitive one. It covers Sun Ra's life in detail without getting so detailed that the reader loses interest. There is an enormous amount of info in here on how Sun Ra evolved, who he worked with and what he was all about. Essential for the Sun Ra enthusiast - and I guess the only people who would be interested in a biography of Sun Ra would be an enthusiast because it is impossible to be have a middle-of-the-road opinion about this artist who was either a genius or wierd charlaton (or both?).