INTRO: WONDER INN
1. Sun Ra, “Space Aura,” Music from Tomorrow’s World: Sun Ra and His Arkestra, Chicago 1960, Atavistic ALP 237, 2002, CD. Recorded live at the Wonder Inn.
2. Sun Ra, “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” by George and Ira Gershwin, on Music from Tomorrow’s World.
CHAPTER 1: ALIEN
1. Details of Sun Ra’s sojourn on planet Earth come largely from John Szwed’s biography Space Is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra (New York: Da Capo, 1998), as well as scattered interviews, transcriptions, and video.
2. Ibid., 6.
3. Ibid., 6, 11.
4. Ibid., 11.
5. Brother from Another Planet is the title of Don Letts’s documentary film about Sun Ra (BBC4 broadcast, October 28, 2005), but the title comes from John Sayles’s film of that name. Letts offers an exhilarating introduction to Sun Ra’s life and work. He combines footage from Robert Mugge’s 1980 documentary about Sun Ra, A Joyful Noise, and John Coney’s film Space Is the Place (1974) with interviews of a number of Sun Ra’s musicians and admirers, including Marshall Allen, Luqman Ali, Danny Thompson, Michael Ray, Archie Shepp, and Amiri Baraka.
6. The standard discography lists over two hundred LPs and compact discs and contains almost eight hundred entries beginning in 1946 and including many live-audience recordings. See Robert L. Campbell and Christopher Trent, eds., The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra, 2nd ed. (Redwood, NY: Jazz Cadence Books, n.d.). For an even closer examination of Sun Ra’s early recordings, see the website compiled by Campbell, Trent, and Robert Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra: The Chicago Years,” http://myweb.clemson.edu/~campber/sunra.html. This site adapts information available on the gathering of early recorded material compiled by Michael Anderson in his collection Sun Ra: The Eternal Myth Revealed, Vol. 1, fourteen discs, Transparency 0316, 2011, CD. Much of Sun Ra’s poetry and related writing appears in Sun Ra, The Immeasurable Equation: The Collected Poetry and Prose, comp. and ed. James Wolf and Hartmut Geerken (Norderstedt, Germany: Waitawhile, 2005). Sun Ra’s work as a visual artist can be found among the images in John Corbett, Anthony Elms, and Terri Kapsalis, eds., Pathways to Unknown Worlds: Sun Ra, El Saturn and Chicago’s Afro-Futurist Underground 1954–68 (Chicago: WhiteWalls, 2006).
7. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 308. Scholars and critics who offer especially helpful commentary on Sun Ra’s music, poetry, and politics include the following: John Corbett, Extended Play: Sounding Off from John Cage to Dr. Funkenstein (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994); John Corbett and Aye Aton, Sun Ra and Aye Aton: Space, Interiors and Exteriors, 1972 (New York: PictureBox, 2013); Evan Crandell and Lisa Lorenzino, “Nurturing a Joyful Noise: Examining Sun Ra’s Philosophies as a Model for Music Education,” Canadian Music Educator 54, no. 3 (2013): 25–29; Kodwo Eshun, More Brilliant Than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction (London: Quartet Books, 1998); Krin Gabbard, ed., Jazz among the Discourses (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995); Daniel Kreiss, “Appropriating the Master’s Tools: Sun Ra, the Black Panthers, and Black Consciousness, 1952–1973,” Black Music Research Journal 28, no. 1 (2008): 57–81; Daniel Kreiss, “Performing the Past to Claim the Future: Sun Ra and the Afro-Future Underground, 1954–1968,” African American Review 45, nos. 1–2 (2012): 197–203; George E. Lewis, “Forward: After Afrofuturism,” Journal of the Society for American Music 2, no. 2 (2008): 139–153; Graham Lock, Blutopia: Visions of the Future and Visions of the Past in the Work of Sun Ra, Duke Ellington, and Anthony Braxton (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999); Tadhg O’Keeffe, “Street Ballets in Magic Cities: Cultural Imaginings of the Modern American Metropolis,” Popular Music History 4, no. 2 (2009): 111–125; Nathan Ragain, “A ‘Reconcepted Am’: Language, Nature, and Collectivity in Sun Ra and Henry Dumas,” Criticism 54, no. 4 (2012): 539–565; T. Griffith Rollefson, “The ‘Robot Voodoo Power Thesis’: Afrofuturism and Anti-Anti-Essentialism from Sun Ra to Kool Keith,” Black Music Research Journal 28, no. 1 (2008): 197–215; Stevphen Shukaitis, “Space Is the (Non)Place: Martians, Marxists, and the Outer Space of the Radical Imagination, Sociological Review 57, no. 1 (2009): 98–113; John Swenson, “Images of Tomorrow Disguised as Jazz,” Rolling Stone, March 4, 1993, 63; Marcel Swiboda, “Re Interpretations: Sun Ra’s Egyptian Inscriptions,” Parallax 13, no. 2 (2007): 93–106; Aurelien Tchiemessom, Sun Ra: Un noir dans le cosmos (Paris: Harmattan, 2004); Lorenzo Thomas, “‘Classical Jazz’ and the Black Arts Movement,” African American Review 29, no. 2 (1995): 237–240; Lorenzo Thomas, “The Mathemagic of Sun Ra,” Ann Arbor Sun, April 5–19, 1974, 16–17; Gayle Wald, “Soul Vibrations: Black Music and Black Freedom in Sound and Space,” American Quarterly 63, no. 3 (2011): 673–696; Alexander Weheliye, Phonographies: Grooves in Sonic Afro-Modernity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005).
8. Sun Ra, “[I always called myself Sun Ra],” in The Immeasurable Equation, 457.
9. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 29. The story appears frequently in reviews and interviews.
10. Ibid., 29–30.
11. Ibid., 351.
CHAPTER 2: MARIENVILLE
1. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 39–40. The word “colored” was abbreviated “col.” in the notices. For a discussion of the Sonny Blount Orchestra, see Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra.”
2. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 41.
3. Ibid., 40.
4. Office of the Comptroller General, Decisions of the Comptroller General of the United States, vol. 24, July 1, 1944, to June 30, 1945 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1946), 646.
5. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 41.
6. Ibid., 41, 42.
7. Ibid., 44.
8. Ibid., 44. I base the following imagined exchange between Sonny and the judge on Szwed’s description of the encounter.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid., 45.
11. Ibid., 46.
12. Sun Ra, “The Neglected Plane of Wisdom,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 250.
CHAPTER 3: BRONZEVILLE
1. Arnold R. Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940–1960 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 17.
2. Dempsey J. Travis, “Bronzeville,” in Encyclopedia of Chicago, ed. Janice L. Reiff, Ann Durkin Keating, and James R. Grossman. Chicago: Chicago Historical Society, 2005. www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/171.html. Gentry apparently coined the term “Bronzeville.” He had earlier sponsored an annual Miss Bronze America beauty pageant.
3. Dominic A. Pacyga, Chicago: A Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 324.
4. Thomas Dyja, The Third Coast: When Chicago Built the American Dream (New York: Penguin, 2013), 23.
5. Ibid., 24.
6. Ibid., 83.
7. Alan Ehrenhalt, The Lost City: Discovering the Forgotten Virtues of Community in the Chicago of the 1950s (New York: Basic Books, 1995), 158.
8. Qtd. in ibid., 156. Bronzeville hosted a half-dozen large insurance companies. As Ehrenhalt (158) notes, the Defender annually published this tribute during National Negro Insurance Week: “I am the destroyer of poverty and the enemy of crime. I bring sunshine and happiness wherever I am given half the welcome I deserve. I do not live for the day nor for the morrow but for the unfathomable future. I am your best friend—insurance.”
9. For a detailed account of this second African American renaissance, see Robert Bone and Richard A. Courage, The Muse in Bronzeville: African American Creative Expression in Chicago, 1932–1950 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2011).
10. On Wright and the Chicago Renaissance, see Robert Bone, “Richard Wright and the Chicago Renaissance,” Callaloo 9 (1986): 446–468.
11. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 59.
12. Ibid.
13. For an extended meditation on Chicago jazz and its effects on local life, see Gerald Majer, The Velvet Lounge: On Late Chicago Jazz (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). Majer’s chapter on Sun Ra is the best piece of writing on him and the Arkestra’s music.
14. Dyja, The Third Coast, 35.
15. Ibid., 5–6.
16. Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto, 25. For a distressing fictional representation of these conditions, see the opening scene of Richard Wright, Native Son (1940; repr., New York: Harper Perennial, 1992), 7–12.
17. Gwendolyn Brooks, “kitchenette building,” in Selected Poems (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), 3. Reprinted by consent of Brooks Permissions.
18. This paragraph is loosely based on various descriptions and photos of kitchenettes.
19. The most thorough account of Sonny’s earliest recording and group performances appears on Campbell, Trent, and Pruter’s website “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra.” Michael Anderson’s fourteen-CD compilation Sun Ra: The Eternal Myth Revealed provides invaluable musical context for Sun Ra’s earliest recordings, as well as previously unavailable tracks.
20. Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 57.
21. Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra.”
22. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 56.
23. Dyja, The Third Coast, 135.
24. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 59.
25. I heard this story from the guitarist Bill Kopper, who had it from the Chicago trumpet player Brad Goode.
CHAPTER 4: THMEI
1. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 47. Campbell, Trent, and Pruter’s website “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra” contains many details about early gigs and recordings. Information from this indispensable work appears throughout this section.
2. See Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra,” for more detail regarding Sonny’s encounters with Hawkins. A recording was apparently made of their initial after-hours encounter (1948) and may still exist. Two tracks from the Hawkins session appear on disc 11 of Anderson, Sun Ra: The Eternal Myth Revealed.
3. Bugs Hunter tells of Sonny’s attachment to recording machines, which he took wherever he played and used to record everything, even the Calumet City gigs; see Peter Hinds, conversation with Tommy Hunter, April 9 and 13, 1998, Sun Ra Research 32 (February 2001): 63, 76. Paper tapes broke easily, and Hunter confesses to having thrown out a lot of early material. The Brush Development Company first manufactured the Sound Mirror BK 401 in 1946; see Szwed, Space Is the Place, 34, and, for a picture, Sun Ra Arkive, June 6, 2008, http://sunraarkive.blogspot.com/2008/06/brush-sound-mirror-bk401.html.
4. Wright, Native Son, 3.
5. Ibid., 164.
6. Ibid., 109.
7. Ibid., 23, 24.
8. Ibid., 84–85.
9. Ibid., 392.
10. Ibid., 364, 366.
11. Ibid., 366, 368.
12. Ibid., 335.
13. These tunes as well as the poem can be heard on Anderson, Sun Ra: The Eternal Myth Revealed, discs 3–5.
14. Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra.”
15. Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 364, 100.
16. William Sites, “Radical Culture in Black Necropolis: Sun Ra, Alton Abraham, and Postwar Chicago,” Journal of Urban History 38, no. 4 (2012): 691. See also Sites’s essay “‘We Travel the Spaceways’: Urban Utopianism and the Imagined Spaces of Black Experimental Music,” Urban Geography 33, no. 4 (2012): 566–592.
17. Alton Abraham Collection of Sun Ra, 1822–2008, box 51, folder 15, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library (hereinafter cited as AAC).
18. Ibid.
19. John Corbett, “From the Windy City to the Omniverse: Sun Ra’s Chicago Life as Street Priest and Father of D.I.Y Jazz,” Down Beat, December 2006, 36.
20. AAC, box 19, folder 21. See also AAC, box 21, folder 7.
21. Sites provides a detailed description and assessment of this secret society in “Radical Culture.”
22. Sir Gardner Wilkinson, The Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, 3rd ed., 5 vols. (London: John Murray, 1847), 5:29.
23. Ibid.
24. Sites, “Radical Culture,” 692.
25. AAC, box 14, folder 2.
26. Ibid.
27. Wright, Native Son, 364.
28. Sites, “Radical Culture,” 697.
29. Gardiner H. Shattuck, “Wallace Fard,” American National Biography Online, www.anb.org/articles/08/08–00457.html.
30. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 105–106.
31. See ibid., 106–107.
32. The allusion here to Carl Schmitt is meant to emphasize Thmei’s emphasis on a sovereignty descending from above. See Schmitt’s Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, trans. George Schwab (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985).
33. Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 313.
34. AAC, box 18, folder 6.
35. AAC, box 14, folder 1.
36. AAC, box 13, folder 12. The word “Better” was added by Abraham himself.
37. AAC, box 15, folder 9.
38. Ibid.
39. Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 75.
40. Ibid.
41. In John Hinds and Peter Hinds, conversation with Sun Ra, October 13, 1984, Sun Ra Research 19 (October 1998): 3.
42. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 79.
43. Ibid., 86, 85. For a fuller discussion of the significance of the name “Sun Ra,” see ibid., 79–87.
CHAPTER 5: EGYPT
1. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 65.
2. Jennifer Rycenga, “Interview with Sun Ra,” transcr. and ed. Dan Plonsey, [1988], www.plonsey.com/beanbenders/SUNRA-interview.html.
3. Constantin-François Volney, The Ruins; or, Meditations on the Revolutions of Empires; and the Law of Nature. Baltimore, MD: Black Classics, 1991.
4. George Wells Parker, The Children of the Sun (1918; repr., Baltimore, MD: Black Classics, 1981).
5. Theodore P. Ford, God Wills the Negro (Chicago: Geographical Institute Press, 1939).
6. Grafton Elliot Smith, Ancient Egypt and the Origins of Civilization, rev. ed. (1923; repr., Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries, 1971), xi.
7. Ibid., 26.
8. George G. M. James, Stolen Legacy: The Greeks Were Not the Authors of Greek Philosophy, but the People of North Africa, Commonly Called the Egyptians (New York: Philosophical Library, 1954), 3.
9. Ibid., 5.
10. Ibid., 7, 158.
11. Ibid., 153, 155–156.
1. This scenario is based on Sun Ra’s reminiscence of his days in Chicago’s Washington Park as recounted in John Hinds and Peter Hinds, conversation with Sun Ra and Carl LeBlanc, October 31, 1988, Sun Ra Research 15 (February 1998): 8–9. I have tried to stay very close to the facts presented there and the sentiments contained in Sun Ra’s broadsheets.
2. Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 78.
3. To John Corbett goes the credit for rescuing this priceless hoard of memorabilia after fortuitously learning that Abraham’s house was scheduled for demolition. To the University of Chicago go the thanks for housing and cataloging it all at the Special Collections Research Center. An article by Barry McRae corroborates Sun Ra’s activist commitments: “He is held in very high esteem by all of the Chicago modernists that I have met, not only as a musician but also for his extra musical activities. As his nomenclature suggests he is deeply interested in the universe and senses that the whole spectrum of human knowledge will be expanded now that interplanetary travel can be realistically predicted. On a more mundane level he is a true product of his background, and the deprivation on Chicago’s South Side has made a deep impression on him. He has always felt resentment, not only of the conditions themselves, but also the blind resignation with which they are accepted. During the late fifties he became, almost by accident, the leader of an organization determined to see improvements. His practical philosophies earned him many followers outside the musical field, and, with their help, he set out to better the lot of the poorer Chicagoans. He distributed pamphlets that expounded a doctrine of self-improvement to the Negro population”; see Barry McRae, “Sun Ra,” Jazz Journal 19, no. 8 (1966): 15.
4. See John Corbett’s introduction, “one of everything: blount hermeneutics and the wisdom of ra,” in The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra’s Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets, ed. John Corbett (Chicago: WhiteWalls, 2006), 5–6. For the originals, see AAC, box 15, folder 10.
5. Sun Ra, “keys to understanding the hidden meaning of the bible,” in Corbett, The Wisdom of Sun Ra, 122.
6. Sites, “Radical Culture in Black Necropolis,” 695–696.
7. Sun Ra, “humpty dumpty,” in Corbett, The Wisdom of Sun Ra, 119.
8. Sun Ra, “united states at the crossroads,” in Corbett, The Wisdom of Sun Ra, 112.
9. Sun Ra, “humpty dumpty,” 120.
10. Sun Ra, “keys to understanding the hidden meaning of the bible,” in Corbett, The Wisdom of Sun Ra, 123.
11. Sun Ra, “humpty dumpty,” 120; Sun Ra, “[illegible title] it is time to discuss,” in Corbett, The Wisdom of Sun Ra, 117.
12. Sun Ra, “united states at the crossroads,” 113.
13. Sun Ra, “[illegible title] it is time to discuss,” 116.
14. Sun Ra, “why don’t you turn again!,” in Corbett, The Wisdom of Sun Ra, 109.
15. Sun Ra, “satan,” in Corbett, The Wisdom of Sun Ra, 139.
16. Sun Ra, “why don’t you turn again!,” 109.
17. Sun Ra, “zoroastrianism,” in Corbett, The Wisdom of Sun Ra, 138.
18. Sun Ra, “the truth,” in Corbett, The Wisdom of Sun Ra, 130.
19. Sun Ra, “the poor little rich one: the prince of this world . . . ,” in Corbett, The Wisdom of Sun Ra, 102.
20. Sun Ra, “the bible was not written for negroes!!!!!!!,” in Corbett, The Wisdom of Sun Ra, 90.
21. Sun Ra, “united states at the crossroads,” 111.
22. Sun Ra, “wake up! wake up! wake up!,” in Corbett, The Wisdom of Sun Ra, 89.
23. Ibid.
24. Sun Ra, “. . . solution to the negro problem . . . ,” in Corbett, The Wisdom of Sun Ra, 114.
25. Sun Ra, “the god of Israel,” in Corbett, The Wisdom of Sun Ra, 110.
26. Sun Ra, “jesus said, ‘let the negro bury the negro,’” in Corbett, The Wisdom of Sun Ra, 66. No tenable etymological connection exists between “Negro” and “necro,” but Sun Ra uses such associations of sound to disrupt the conventional meaning of words. In this case, auditory similarity reveals what a difference in meaning obscures: that black people suffer social death as a legacy of enslavement.
27. Sun Ra, “the true way to life,” in Corbett, The Wisdom of Sun Ra, 87.
28. Sun Ra, “I don’t give a hoot,” in Corbett, The Wisdom of Sun Ra, 96.
29. Sun Ra, “johnny one note,” in Corbett, The Wisdom of Sun Ra, 105.
30. Sun Ra, “satan is the god of the spooks / negroes are the children of the ‘devil,’” in Corbett, The Wisdom of Sun Ra, 72.
31. Sun Ra, “the bible was not written for negroes!!!!!!!,” 90.
32. Sun Ra, “humpty dumpty,” 120.
33. Sun Ra, “jesus said, ‘let the negro bury the negro,’” 66.
34. Sun Ra, “humpty dumpty,” 119.
35. Sun Ra, “why don’t you turn again!,” 109.
36. Sun Ra, “the poor little rich one: the prince of this world,” 102.
37. Sun Ra, “what must negroes do to be saved,” in Corbett, The Wisdom of Sun Ra, 126.
38. Ibid., 128.
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid., 127.
42. Ibid., 128.
43. Sun Ra, “[illegible title] it is time to discuss,” 117.
44. Sun Ra, “the end,” 141.
45. Sun Ra, “why don’t you turn again!,” 110.
46. Jennifer Rycenga, interview with Sun Ra, November 2, 1988, part five, Sun Ra Research 26 (December 1999): 8.
CHAPTER 7: ARKESTRA
1. Sun Ra’s early years in Chicago receive meticulous examination in Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra”; and Anderson, Sun Ra: The Eternal Myth Revealed.
2. Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra.”
3. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 17.
4. Ibid.
5. Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra.”
6. In Sun Ra: The Eternal Myth Revealed, Michael Anderson shows how important big bands remained to Sun Ra during the Chicago years, even as smaller ensembles became de rigueur. The Fletcher Henderson Orchestra was only the most influential. Other big bands of great importance to Sun Ra’s musical growth include ones led by Lionel Hampton, Jimmie Lunceford, Benny Carter, and Cab Calloway, as well as the bop-oriented ensembles of Billy Eckstein and Dizzy Gillespie. See Anderson, Sun Ra: The Eternal Myth Revealed, disc 2.
7. Sites, “Radical Culture,” 700.
8. Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra.” This recording appears on Anderson, Sun Ra: The Eternal Myth Revealed, disc 6. Patrick would eventually play with other jazz greats, including John Coltrane, Blue Mitchell, Mongo Santamaria, and Thelonious Monk. Deval Patrick, the governor of Massachusetts from 2007 to 2015, is his son.
9. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 88.
10. In a 1954 essay in Melody Maker, the great jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams, writing of the origins of bebop, quotes Thelonious Monk as saying, “We’re going to get a big band started. We’re going to create something they can’t steal, because they can’t play it.” See Rob van der Bliek, The Thelonious Monk Reader (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 12.
11. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 94.
12. Ibid., 93; Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra.” Such a list is hardly definitive. With some notable exceptions, the Arkestra’s personnel would shift dramatically throughout its extraordinary history.
13. The picture appears in Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra.”
14. Ibid.
15. Sun Ra, “the poor little rich one: the prince of this world,” in Corbett, The Wisdom of Sun Ra, 102.
16. Sites, “Radical Culture,” 703.
17. Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 100.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid., 97, 116.
20. Rycenga, “Interview with Sun Ra” [1988].
21. Transcription of an interview with Pat Patrick, AAC, box 56, folder 3.
22. Peter Hinds and John Hinds, conversation with Sun Ra and Charles Bass, November 15, 1991, Sun Ra Research 1 (May 1995): 3.
23. Sun Ra, “Sun Ra Interview (Helsinki 1971),” http://nuvoid.blogspot.com/2012/04/sun-ra-sunday_22.html.
24. Qtd. in Bret Primack, “Captain Angelic: Sun Ra,” Down Beat, May 4, 1978, 41.
25. Qtd. in Chris Cutler, “In the Realm of Lightning,” in Omniverse Sun Ra, ed. Hartmut Geerken and Bernhard Hefele (Wartaweil, Germany: Waitawhile, 1994), 81.
26. Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 128.
27. Details gleaned from Corbett, “From the Windy City,” 35; Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra.”
28. See Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra,” for a close and careful accounting of the singles that constitute the Arkestra’s earliest recordings. Both sides of the first single reappeared on the Arkestra’s first Saturn LP: Sun Ra, Super-Sonic Jazz, Evidence 22015, 1991, CD; original release, Saturn H7OP0216, 1957, LP.
CHAPTER 8: IMMEASURABLE EQUATION
1. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 29.
2. Sun Ra, “My Music is Words,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 469.
3. Ibid., 468.
4. The poems included in the latter were “The Plane: Earth” and “Primary Lesson: The Second Class Citizen.” See Arnold Adoff, ed., The Poetry of Black America: Anthology of the 20th Century (New York: Harper and Row, 1973).
5. Two handy if editorially improvisational collections of Sun Ra’s poetry have recently appeared on an imprint called Kicks Books: Sun Ra, This Planet Is Doomed: The Science Fiction Poetry of Sun Ra (New York: Kicks Books, 2011), and Sun Ra, Prophetika (New York: Kicks Books, 2014), both edited by Miriam Linna. Neither offers insight into the publication circumstances of the poems they include. Kicks’s affiliated record label, Norton Records, has released several vinyl albums of poetry read by the master himself: Sun Ra, Strange Worlds in My Mind: Sun Ra and His Arkestra, Norton CED 365, 2010, CD; ED-365, 2010, LP. Sun Ra, The Sub-Dwellers: Sun Ra and His Arkestra, Norton CED 366, 2010, CD; ED-366, 2010, LP. Sun Ra, The Outer Darkness: Sun Ra and His Arkestra, Norton CED 367, 2010, CD; ED 367, 2010, LP. Sun Ra, My Way is the Spaceways: Sun Ra and His Arkestra, Norton CED-391, 2014, CD; ED-391, 2014, LP. Szwed published several examples of Sun Ra’s poetry in Space Is the Place; see in particular pp. 319–329. Sun Ra’s poetry can be found on the Internet, of course, in various states and guises.
6. Essays are by James L. Wolf, Hartmut Geerken, Sigrid Hauff, Klaus Detlef Thiel, and Brent Hays Edwards; see Sun Ra, The Immeasurable Equation.
7. A typescript for “The Magic Lie” exists among the material in the Alton Abraham Collection, AAC, box 13, folder 4.
8. See Sun Ra Research 17 (1998), inside front cover.
9. As can be heard on Sun Ra, Concert for the Comet Kohoutek, ESP Disk’ 3033, 1993, CD. This live performance was recorded at Town Hall in New York on December 22, 1973.
10. “He was the bandleader as prophetic leader, the music arranger as arranger of the world. Such a program was enough to qualify him as a European romantic.” Then Szwed adds an important qualifier: “But his was an African-American romanticism, its goal a collective metaphysical experience” (Space Is the Place, 383).
11. William Blake, Jerusalem, pl. 10, ll. 20–21. From Blake, The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, rev. ed., ed. David V. Erdman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 153. I have retained Blake’s spelling and punctuation.
12. Percy Bysshe Shelley, “To a Skylark,” in Shelley’s Poetry and Prose, ed. Donald H. Reiman and Sharon B. Powers (New York: Norton, 1977), 226, 228.
13. An exception is the perceptive work of Graham Lock, who senses keenly the persistence in Sun Ra’s poetry of African American tropes and themes; see his Blutopia. A helpful introduction to Sun Ra’s poetry appears among the essays in Sun Ra, The Immeasurable Equation: Brent Hayes Edwards’s “Race for Space: Sun Ra’s Poetry” (29–56). The poetry’s importance is understated in even so celebratory a gathering of essays as John Corbett, Anthony Elms, and Terri Kapsalis, eds., Traveling the Spaceways: Sun Ra, the Astro Black and Other Solar Myths (Chicago: WhiteWalls, 2010).
14. See Aldon Lynn Nielson, Black Chant: Languages of African-American Postmodernism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
15. Nathaniel Mackey, Discrepant Engagement: Dissonance, Cross-Culturality, and Experimental Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 7.
16. Ibid., 8.
17. Amiri Imamu Baraka [LeRoi Jones], Black Music (1968; repr., New York: Da Capo, 1998), 136.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid., 198.
20. Ibid., 129.
21. This is a favorite sentiment of Sun Ra’s. This version appears in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 295.
22. I am drawing loosely here on Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, trans. Douglas Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); and Paul D. Miller, Rhythm Science (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004). For explorations of sound from a variety of cultural perspectives, see Kara Keeling and Josh Kun, eds., Sound Clash: Listening to American Studies (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012).
23. Sun Ra, “The Sound I Hear,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 346.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. Sun Ra, “The Pure Sound,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 318.
27. Baraka, Black Music, 194.
28. Mackey, Discrepant Engagement, 323.
29. See Immanuel Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, trans. Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews, rev. ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). For a succinct exposition, see Gilles Deleuze, Kant’s Critical Philosophy, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985).
30. Qtd. in Mackey, Discrepant Engagement, 232.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid., 235.
33. Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 306.
34. Sun Ra, “The Confusion of Words,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 104.
35. Ibid.
36. Sun Ra, “To The Peoples of Earth,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 390.
37. Jennifer Rycenga, interview with Sun Ra, November 2, 1988, part one, Sun Ra Research 2 (July 1995): 8.
38. Sun Ra, “The Glory of Shame” (1980), in The Immeasurable Equation, 185.
39. Sun Ra, The Soul Vibrations of Man, Saturn 771, 1977, LP. The recording was released without track titles. “Third Heaven” appears on side 1.
40. Sun Ra, “Be-earthed” (1972), in The Immeasurable Equation, 75.
41. Sun Ra, “[Point, Equal, Aim],” in The Immeasurable Equation, 306. On L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry, see Bruce Andrews and Charles Bernstein, eds., The L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Book (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984).
42. Sun Ra, “Tomorrow Never Comes,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 391.
43. Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 304.
44. Sun Ra, “Cosmic Equation,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 110.
45. Ibid.
46. Sun Ra, “The Outer Bridge” (1965), in The Immeasurable Equation, 293.
47. On language as a control machine and the word as virus, see William S. Burroughs, Nova Express (1964; repr., New York, Grove, 1992); William S. Burroughs, The Job: Interviews with William S. Burroughs (New York: Penguin, 1989). Burroughs shares Sun Ra’s sense that disrupting conventional associations and substituting new ones can open up new possibilities for life.
48. Sun Ra, “The Enwrit” (1972), in The Immeasurable Equation, 155.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid.
51. Sun Ra, “Discernment,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 137.
52. Sun Ra, “The Enwrit,” 155.
53. Sun Ra, “Music of the Spheres,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 243.
54. Sun Ra, “Of Coordinate Vibrations,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 262.
55. Ibid.
56. Sun Ra, “New Horizons,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 255.
57. Ibid.
58. Sun Ra, “The Skilled Way,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 341.
59. Sun Ra, “The Equal And The Opposite,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 157.
60. Sun Ra, “The Neglected Plane of Wisdom,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 250–251. As the editors point out, this poem appears on early catalogs for Sun Ra’s record company, Saturn, accompanied by the phrase “Registered 1955.” While no evidence exists that Sun Ra copyrighted the poem, if that date refers to its composition, “The Neglected Plane of Wisdom” constitutes one of his earliest works.
61. Sun Ra, “The Stage of Man,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 363.
62. See Sun Ra Research 5 (1995), inside front cover.
63. Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 247.
1. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 123.
2. Sites, “Radical Culture in Black Necropolis,” 702.
3. AAC, box 13, folder 13.
4. Sites, “Radical Culture in Black Necropolis,” 703.
5. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 34. Sadly, these recordings no longer exist.
6. P. Hinds, conversation with Tommy Hunter, April 9 and 13, 1998, 76.
7. Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra.” The recording also appears on Anderson, Sun Ra: The Eternal Myth Revealed, disc 3.
8. Sun Ra, Spaceship Lullaby (1954–1960), Atavistic UMS/ALP243, 2003, CD. Sun Ra’s early work with vocal groups also appears on several recordings issued by Norton Records: Sun Ra, Interplanetary Melodies: Sun Ra and His Arkestra, Norton CED 352, 2009, CD; ED-352, 2009, LP. Sun Ra, The Second Stop is Jupiter: Sun Ra and His Arkestra, Norton CED 353, 2009, CD; ED-353, 2009, LP. Sun Ra, Rocket Ship Rock: Sun Ra and His Arkestra, Norton CED 354, 2009, CD; ED-354, 2009, LP. Recordings that were released as singles (with the exception of four sides by the Metros) can be heard on Sun Ra, The Singles, two discs, Evidence 22164-2, 1996, CD. See Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra,” for a scrupulous account of the vocal-group recordings.
9. John Corbett claims as much in his liner notes to Spaceship Lullaby, but Sites finds no evidence of such a contest beyond a 1955 bill proposed in the Illinois legislature for a new state song. See Sites, “Radical Culture in Black Necropolis,” 717n80.
10. Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 92.
11. Sites, “Radical Culture in Black Necropolis,” 706.
12. Charles Mingus and Max Roach, notable exceptions, founded Debut Records in 1952 and recorded a number of top musicians (Kenny Dorham, Thad Jones, Hank Mobley, and Paul Bley) before closing shop in 1957. See the entries on Mingus and Roach in Barry Kernfeld, ed., The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz (New York: St. Martin’s, 1984).
13. Rycenga, “Interview with Sun Ra” [1988].
14. Robert Campbell, “Sun Ra: Supersonic Sounds from Saturn,” Goldmine, January 22, 1993. Copy archived at AAC, box 1, folder 50.
15. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 152.
16. Sites, “Radical Culture in Black Necropolis,” 701.
17. Royalties statement dated 7/2/64, AAC, box 17, folder 3.
18. Edward W. Whitman, The Book of Saturn (London: Whitman Publishing, n.d.), n.p. A copy is archived at AAC, box 43, folder 5. The quotation appears on an unnumbered page.
19. George King, ed., Cosmic Voice: Aetherius Speaks to Earth, 2 vols. (London: n.p., 1957–1961), 1:26. Archived at AAC, box 44, folder 3.
20. Notebook, AAC, box 13, folder 12. Images appear in Corbett, Elms, and Kapsalis, Pathways to Unknown Worlds, 88–93. In an even more ambitious graphic fantasy, Abraham decorated a Panasonic electronics catalog with a pencil drawing of a “Treasure Map for El Saturn,” depicting the land masses of Europe, Africa, South America, and India (and an equally large “parking Lot”) overflown by huge quarter notes bearing the words “Sun Ra,” the whole tableau watched over by a single Egyptian eye and including gold foil swatches signifying “Money to Fight Ignorance” and “Food for the Hungry.” Construction paper cutouts demarcate “El Saturn’s Fully Equipped Recording Studio” and “Record Pressing Plant.” Abraham clearly had big ambitions for El Saturn. See AAC, box 134, folder 4.
21. Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra.” The single was recorded at Balkan Studios on March 22, 1956, and released later that year. It bears the serial number Z1111. Campbell notes that a 78 rpm disc must have been in the works, although none has ever surfaced: a printed 78 label dated May 31, 1956, on the back can be found at AAC, box 17, folder 7.
22. Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra.”
23. Columbia Records introduced the 33⅓ long-playing vinyl record in 1948. It originally held about twenty-two minutes of music per side.
24. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 154.
25. Corbett, “Obscure Past, Bright Futures: Saturn Records in Silhouette,” in Corbett, Elms, and Kapsalis, Traveling the Spaceways, 41. Producing records by sponsorship more closely resembles book publishing by subscription than a pyramid scam as that term is understood today.
26. AAC, box 17, folder 7.
27. Ibid.
28. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 154.
29. Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra.”
30. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 169. Jazz by Sun Ra, Vol. 1 was released as Transition TRLP J-10 in early 1957. The material recorded for the second Transition LP would not be issued until 1968, when Delmark released it under the title Sound of Joy: Sun Ra and the Arkestra (Delmark DS-414; later release, Delmark DD-414, 2012, CD).
31. AAC, box 16, folder 8. The ad appears here as a proof from the magazine. Its bold declaration would appear frequently in later promotional material for the Arkestra. “Concert FI” probably signifies fidelity to live performance as a measure of the music’s quality. Record companies in the fifties advanced a host of such terms, most familiar among them “Hi-Fi” for “high-fidelity.”
32. Jazz by Sun Ra, Vol. 1 (Transition TRLP J-10, 1957, LP) was rereleased in 1967 by Delmark under the title Sun Song as an LP (DL-411 and DS-411) and again in 1991 as a CD (DD-411). The full pamphlet serves as the liner notes to the compact disc, which is cited here. Typography from the original has been partly retained.
33. Liner notes, Sun Song.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
37. Harriet Choice, “Rah, rah, . . . sunny Mr. Ra,” Chicago Tribune, September 10, 1972. Archived at AAC, box 1, folder 8.
38. Assorted business cards. AAC, box 17, folder 7.
39. Business card “Copyright 1973,” AAC, box 89, folder 6.
40. “From the world of . . . Saturn Records.” AAC, box 18, folder 10.
41. AAC, box 17, folder 7.
42. Sun Ra, “the end,” in Corbett, The Wisdom of Sun Ra, 141.
43. The flyer promotes the Arkestra’s LP Jazz in Silhouette. AAC, box 15, folder 6 (1 of 2).
44. A gifted graphic artist, Dangerfield designed much of El Saturn’s early printed matter, but little is known of his later activities. His work appears beautifully reproduced in Corbett, Elms, and Kapsalis, Traveling the Spaceways. For a discussion of black graphic designers contemporary with Dangerfield, see Victor Margolin, “El Saturn Records and Black Designers in Chicago,” in Corbett, Elms, and Kapsalis, Traveling the Spaceways, 45–52.
45. Liner notes, Sun Ra, Super-Sonic Jazz.
46. Ibid.
47. AAC, box 16, folder 3.
48. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 273.
49. Ibid.
50. Sites, “Radical Culture in Black Necropolis,” 703.
51. “You never knew what you’d get paid,” said Vertamae Grosvenor, one of the “ethnic voices” in the later Arkestra. “$5, $15. But you always got something.” Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 118.
52. AAC, box 18, folder 18.
53. AAC, box 19, folder 9.
54. AAC, box 18, folder 18.
55. Ibid.
56. AAC, box 19, folder 3.
57. AAC, box 23, folder 6.
58. AAC, box 18, folder 7.
59. Corbett, “Obscure Past, Bright Future: Saturn Records in Silhouette,” in Corbett, Elms, and Kapsalis, Traveling the Spaceways, 42.
60. Transcribed from a draft of the letter in Abraham’s hand, AAC, box 17, folder 7. A facsimile of the typed letter appears in Corbett, Elms, and Kapsalis, Pathways to Unknown Worlds, 127.
61. Ibid.
62. Reproductions of these tickets appear in this book as well as Corbett, Elms, and Kapsalis, Pathways to Unknown Worlds, 82.
63. Small promotional poster, AAC, box 25, folder 5.
64. Liner notes, Sun Ra, Super-Sonic Jazz.
65. Corbett relates this tale of healing in Corbett, Elms, and Kapsalis, Traveling the Spaceways, 41.
CHAPTER 10: ISOTOPE TELEPORTATION
1. Bilandic blamed the formidable blizzard—or perhaps the inability to get the streets quickly plowed—for his loss to Jane Byrne in the 1979 Democratic mayoral primary.
2. Internet sources provide the readiest information about the history of the Chicago “L.” See in particular Pacyga, Chicago: A Biography, 219, 237; “Histories and Chronologies,” Chicago-l.org, www.chicago-l.org; and Ronald Dale Karr, “Rapid Transit System,” in Encyclopedia of Chicago, ed. Janice L. Reiff, Ann Durkin Keating, and James R. Grossman (Chicago: Chicago Historical Society, 2005), www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1042.html. For a gorgeous gallery of early images, see “Early Years of Chicago’s ‘L,’” Chicago Tribune, December 6, 2013, http://galleries.apps.chicagotribune.com/chi-131205-early-years-chicago-elevated-train-pictures/.
3. Qtd. in “Original ‘L’ Companies,” Chicago-l.org, www.chicago-l.org/history/4line.html.
4. “The CTA Takes Over: Resurrection through Modernization (1947–1970),” Chicago-l.org, www.chicago-l.org/history/CTA2.html.
5. Kevin Whitehead, “Sun Ra’s Chicago Music: El is a Sound of Joy,” in Corbett, Elms, and Kapsalis, Traveling the Spaceways, 24.
6. On the slave ship as technology of terror, see Marcus Rediker, The Slave Ship: A Human History (New York: Viking, 2007).
7. Ibid., 311.
8. Rick Theis, “Fallen Angel,” interview with Sun Ra, Semiotext(e) 12 (1984), http://semiotexte.com/?p=680.
9. Sun Ra and His Myth Science Arkestra, Interstellar Low Ways, Evidence 22039, 1993, CD; original release (titled Rocket Number Nine Take Off for the Planet Venus), Saturn Sr 9945-2-M/N, 1966, LP.
10. I owe this insight to conversation with my dear friend C. S. Giscombe.
CHAPTER 11: CRY OF JAZZ
1. Campbell, Trent, and Pruter describe many of these clubs in detail in “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra.”
2. Wilbur Green played electric bass with the Arkestra until May 1956, helping to create what Campbell, Trent, and Pruter describe as a “highly distinctive ensemble sound.” Sproles joined the band in the fall of 1956, as did Cochran. See Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra.”
3. This material would not appear until 1967, when it was released on the Delmark label.
4. Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra.”
5. Shot in black and white and thirty-four minutes long, The Cry of Jazz would take several years to complete. It was released on April 3, 1959, although a note appeared in the Chicago Defender announcing an October 1958 date; see Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra.”
6. The tunes Bland used, all previously recorded, were “Call for All Demons,” “Urnack,” “Super Blonde,” “Blues at Midnight,” and “Demon’s Lullaby” (Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra”). For a draft copy of a permission agreement, see AAC, box 16, folder 8 (1 of 2).
7. Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra.” Interestingly, the draft contract between KHTB Productions and Enterplan Publishing Company, to have been signed by Alton Abraham, Herman S. Blount, and Edward O. Bland, stipulates that KHTB Productions was “to give credits [. . .] to the writers and only the particular writers, Le Sun Ra and Julian Priester, of the said musical compositions,” namely “Blues at Midnight,” “Demon’s Lullaby,” “Urnack,” “Super Blonde,” and “Call for all Demons.” The contract was never signed; see AAC, box 16, folder 8 (1 of 2).
8. Bland’s film provides the sole glimpse of the early Arkestra in action, as Campbell, Trent, and Pruter note: “The Cry of Jazz contains the only film footage of the band from the Chicago period: scenes of the Arkestra filmed at 5 or 6 club gigs between 1956 and 1958” (“From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra”). Because the recordings were made before the film, musicians in the footage do not sync with the music they appear to play. The effect is a luscious montage of the Arkestra’s members and sounds. Music composed and played by Paul Severson and Eddie Higgins also appears in the film. See Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra,” for a scrupulous accounting of soundtrack and credits.
9. The musician and composer Paul Severson appears on a number of Chicago recordings from the mid-1950s, some with Eddie Higgins. Severson played trumpet, trombone, and keyboards (Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra”).
10. For jazz musicians, a “chorus” signifies one complete set of a song’s chords (as “verse” does for sung music), barring intros or endings. A chorus provides the basic unit for improvising over a song form.
11. The Cry of Jazz, dir. Edward Bland (Chicago: KHTB Productions, 1959). All quotations transcribed directly from the film.
12. See Sun Ra Research 25 (October 1999), back cover.
13. Miles Davis, Kind of Blue, Columbia CK 40579, 1986, CD; original release, Columbia CS 8136, 1959, LP. Ornette Coleman, The Shape of Jazz to Come, Atlantic 1317-2, 1990, CD; original release, Atlantic SD 1317, 1959, LP. John Coltrane, Giant Steps, Atlantic 1311-2, 1987, CD; original release, Atlantic 1311, 1959, LP. Sun Ra, Jazz in Silhouette, Evidence 22012-2, 1991, CD; original release, Saturn K70P3590/K70P3591 (quoted phrase from liner notes).
14. John Corbett, “Obscure Past, Bright Future,” in Corbett, Elms, and Kapsalis, Traveling the Spaceways, 42. A more mundane explication of the name appears on several copies of an American Federation of Musicians contract for a job at the Sutherland Lounge signed on June 13, 1959, about the time Sun Ra was working on Jazz in Silhouette. Tantalizingly, the lines for “Employer” read “Gay Silhouettes” followed by “Clarice Pollard.” Could the LP’s evocative title contain a biographical reference? See AAC, box 16, folder 8 (2 of 2).
15. Jacket copy, Sun Ra, Jazz in Silhouette.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid.
CHAPTER 12: SPUTNIK
1. Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra.”
2. Recordings of the Cosmic Rays appear on Sun Ra, Spaceship Lullaby. The rehearsal recording of the Crystals singing “Little Sally Walker” is included on The Second Stop is Jupiter. This group should not be confused with the much more successful all-female New York quartet of the same name famous in the sixties.
3. Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 179.
4. See George Adamski and Desmond Lee, Flying Saucers Have Landed (London: Werner Laurie, 1953). A letter in the Alton Abraham Collection, signed by one Charlotte Blob (the publisher, apparently, of The Cosmic Newsletter), indicates that Abraham was in the audience when Adamski spoke in Chicago in September 1964 (AAC, box 18, folder 12).
5. AAC, box 14, folder 4. Bryant writes in cursive on blank paper and illustrates his sighting with a formation of five dots. The two lights from the south seem to propagate waves.
6. AAC, box 44, folder 3.
7. Campbell, Trent, and Pruter (“From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra”) suggest that “Adventur in Space” might originally have been titled “Journey in Discland,” a possibility that shows Sun Ra turning his music willfully toward themes of space. This track can be heard on Sun Ra, The Singles; the others, on Anderson, Sun Ra: The Eternal Myth Revealed, disc 12.
8. Harry Harper, Dawn of the Space Age (London: Sampson Low, 1946). The phrase first appeared as the title of an article written by Harper and featured on the cover of the British magazine Everybody’s Weekly (January 19, 1946). Harper predicted that in the future, humans would “penetrate the stratosphere and conquer outer space” (8–9).
9. Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 173.
10. Back cover liner notes (LP), Sun Ra, Super-Sonic Jazz, AAC, box 81.
11. Ibid. The Evidence compact disc of Super-Sonic Jazz reprints both poems on its liner, as well as images of both covers, but not the listening instructions. See liner notes, Sun Ra, Super-Sonic Jazz.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid. In an interview, Marshall Allen reports that Sun Ra had fully arrived at his understanding of space music by the time the Arkestra made its first recording for the Transition label, “but he had to develop the musicians. To the concept of something different.” See “It Makes You Booomph! Marshall Allen Interviewed by Edwin Pouncy,” Sun Ra Arkive 1 (December 2002), 8, www.the-temple.net/astroblack/sunraarkive/issue1/sra1p_8.html.
14. Liner notes, Sun Ra, Super-Sonic Jazz.
15. Ibid. Recall the following from “what must negroes do to be saved”: “reality can become real only if approached from the point of culture and art,” in Corbett, The Wisdom of Sun Ra, 128.
16. Liner notes, Sun Ra, Super-Sonic Jazz.
17. Ibid.
18. Bruce Cameron Reed, The History and Science of the Manhattan Project (New York: Springer, 2013), 179.
19. J. G. Ballard, “Introduction to the French Edition,” Crash (1973; repr., New York: Vintage, 1985), 3.
20. The best history of these issues remains Walter A. McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age (New York: Basic Books, 1985). See also William E. Burrows, This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age (New York: Random House, 1998); Everett C. Dolman, Astropolitik: Classical Geopolitics in the Space Age (New York: Routledge, 2001); and Howard E. McCurdy, Space and the American Imagination (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011).
21. On the problem of creating a space free for technological exploitation, see McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth, especially chapter 4, “While Waiting for Technocracy: The ICBM and the First American Space Program,” 97–111.
22. For a brief description of the aims and outcomes of the International Geophysical Year (IGY), see ibid., 59–62. The IGY occurred over a span of months during which the Arkestra was refining its sound toward making its first El Saturn LP.
23. See ibid., 132–140.
24. President’s Science Advisory Committee, Introduction to Outer Space (Washington, DC: GPO, 1958), n.p., www.fas.org/spp/guide/usa/intro1958.html.
25. Ibid., 1. Star Trek garbles Ike’s sloganeering with its masculinized “where no man has gone before.”
26. National Security Council Planning Board, “Preliminary U.S. Policy on Outer Space,” (NSC 5814/1), June 20, 1958, 4, http://marshall.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/NSC-5814-Preliminary-U.S.-Policy-on-Outer-Space-18-Aug-1958.pdf.
27. McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth, 186.
28. Ibid., 180.
29. Qtd. in ibid., 172.
30. Qtd. in National Aeronautics and Space Council, “Draft Statement of U.S. Policy on Outer Space,” (NSC 5918/1), December 17, 1959, 8, http://marshall.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/NSC-5918-1-U.S.-Policy-on-Outer-Space-26-Jan-1960.pdf.
31. McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth, 157.
32. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 236.
33. These figures appear at “United States Federal, State, and Local Government Spending Fiscal Year 1957,” usgovernmentspending.com, www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_1957USbf_15bs2n#usgs302.
34. Hinds and Hinds, conversation with Sun Ra and Charles Blass, 1.
35. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 140.
36. Qtd. in ibid., 382.
1. Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra.”
2. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 179.
3. Ibid., 180.
4. Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra.”
5. The release of “recently discovered” live Arkestra recordings is something of an industry unto itself and seems unlikely ever to run out of material. Early examples include Sun Ra, Music From Tomorrow’s World; material released on Anderson, Sun Ra: The Eternal Myth Revealed; the additional tunes included on ESP’s two-disc rerelease of Sun Ra, Nothing Is, ESP-Disk’ 4060, 2010, CD (original release, ESP-Disk’ 1045, 1969, LP, from a college tour recorded in 1964); and the “Lost Reels” series of recordings issued by Transparency, largely if illegally culled from later performances.
6. Tunes from the Elks hall session with space-type titles include “Space Mates,” “Lights on a Satellite,” “Space Loneliness,” “Somewhere in Space,” “Interplanetary Music,” and “Rocket Number Nine Take Off for the Planet Venus.” The batch of compositions copyrighted together as “Space Loneliness: A Sound Concerto” include “Space Loneliness,” “Lights on a Satellite,” “Fate in a Pleasant Mood,” and “State Street” (Campbell, Trent, and Pruter, “From Sonny Blount to Sun Ra”).
7. Corbett, Elms, and Kapsalis, Traveling the Spaceways, 41.
8. Qtd. in McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth, 303.
9. Ibid., 202.
10. Qtd. in ibid., 303.
11. Ibid., 381.
12. For a thorough and incisive discussion of systems engineering and the emergence of technocracy during the Space Age, see Nicholas de Monchaux, Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012), esp. 45–50.
13. McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth, 382.
14. Ibid., 383, 382.
15. The Magic Sun, dir. Phill Niblock (Experimental Intermedia, 1966; rerelease, Atavistic DJ-861, 2005, DVD).
16. Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 173.
17. See de Monchaux, Spacesuit, 327–342.
18. Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 174.
19. Ibid.
1. For a mesmerizing tour through those images and icons, see Steve Holland and Alex Summersby, Sci-Fi Art: A Graphic History (New York: HarperCollins, 2009); and Forrest J. Ackerman and Brad Linaweaver, Worlds of Tomorrow: The Amazing Universe of Science Fiction Art (Portland, OR: Collectors, 2004).
2. Megan Prelinger, Another Science Fiction: Advertising the Space Race 1957–1962 (New York: Blast Books, 2010), 15.
3. For an exhaustive reckoning, see Bill Warren, Keep Watching the Skies! American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties, the 21st Century Edition (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010). Examples of the visual images that promotional material for such movies circulated can be seen at Cinemacom.com: “80 Great Posters of Not So Great and Even Worse Sci-Fi Movies 1950–1965,” www.cinemacom.com/50s-sci-fi-REST.html. Adilifu Nama approaches science fiction film from a black perspective in “R Is for Race, Not Rocket: Black Representation in American Science Fiction Cinema,” Quarterly Review of Film and Video 26, no. 2 (2009): 155–166.
4. Information about fifties and sixties science fiction television abounds on the Internet, for instance, at the IMDb site; see “Sci-Fi Television in the 1950s,” www.imdb.com/list/ls000097346/. The definitive bibliographic reference (an exhaustive work of fan scholarship) remains Alan Morton’s The Complete Directory to Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Television Series: A Comprehensive Guide to the First 50 Years, 1946–1996 (Peoria, IL: Other Worlds, 1997).
5. McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth, 100.
6. For a joyous romp through the nostalgic world of early science fiction toys and games, see S. Mark Young, Steve Duin, and Mike Richardson, Blast Off! Rockets, Robots, Ray Guns and Rarities from the Golden Age of Space Toys (New York: Dark Horse Comics, 2001).
7. Mike was less a conventional bomb than an apparatus containing the material that produced the first successful thermonuclear explosion. For a compilation of strangely beautiful and chilling images of atomic and thermonuclear explosions, see Michael Light, 100 Suns, 1945–1962 (New York: Knopf, 2003).
8. The Collier’s series, edited by Cornelius Ryan, ran from 1952 to 1954 and included articles by a pantheon of rocket scientists including Willy Ley, Fred Lawrence Whipple, Joseph Kaplan, and Heinz Haber. The first three articles were visionary advertisements for an American space program: “Man Will Conquer Space Soon,” “Man on the Moon,” and “More about Man on the Moon.” The Collier’s articles became the basis for Walt Disney’s series of Disneyland television episodes entitled “Man in Space,” “Man in the Moon,” and “Mars and Beyond.”
9. Cornelius Ryan, ed., “Man Will Conquer Space Soon: What Are We Waiting For?,” Collier’s, March 22, 1952, 23.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Spaceways, dir. Terence Fisher (Hammer Film Productions, 1953; rerelease, Image Entertainment, 2012, DVD).
13. Ibid. This and the following quotations are transcribed from the film.
14. “Man in Space,” Disneyland television program, March 9, 1955. Portions are available on YouTube. This and the following quotations are transcribed from the program.
15. Such “facts” include a questionable account of the first military use of rockets, which may have occurred at a battle at the Chinese city of “Kai Fun Foo” (Kai-fung-fu).
16. The Day the Earth Stood Still, directed by Robert Wise (20th Century Fox, 1951; rerelease, 20th Century Fox, 2003, DVD). This and the following quotation are transcribed from the film.
17. H. L. Gold, “For Adults Only,” Galaxy Science Fiction, October 1950, 3.
CHAPTER 15: INTERPLANETARY EXOTICA
1. Forbidden Planet, directed by Fred M. Wilcox (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1956; rerelease, Warner Home Video, 2010, DVD.).
2. Harry Revel, Leslie Baxter, and Dr. Samuel J. Hoffman, Music out of the Moon: Music Unusual Featuring the Theremin, Request Records RR 231-1, 1995, CD; original release, Capitol H2000, 1950, LP.
3. Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 98.
4. Les Baxter, Ritual of the Savage (Le Sacre du Sauvage), Rev-Ola CR REV 171, 2006, CD; original release, Capitol T-228, 1951, ten-inch LP. The original recording appeared under the French title with the English in parentheses.
5. As can be heard on Martin Denny, Exotica, Rev-Ola CR REV 101, 2005, CD; original release, Liberty LRP 3034, 1957, LP.
6. Francesco Adinolfi, Mondo Exotica: Sounds, Visions, Obsessions of the Cocktail Generation (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008), 123.
7. Attilio Mineo, Man in Space with Sounds, Subliminal Sounds SUBCD 4, 2011, CD; original release, World’s Fair Records, LP-55555, 1962, LP.
8. Liner notes, Arthur Ferrante and Louis Teicher, Soundproof: The Sound of Tomorrow Today!, El Records ACMEM 124CD, 2012, CD; original release, Westminster WP 6014, 1956, LP.
9. Ferrante and Teicher recorded Soundproof before the advent of echo machines and digital reverb effects. The record’s title refers to their need to soundproof the studio in which it was made in order to maximize the sonic profile of the technologies and materials used in the process. According to their personal manager, Scott W. Smith, Ferrante and Teicher created the thick reverb that suffuses their pianos by “sending the sound by wire to the floor below’s tile bathroom . . . to speakers inside. Then mics were placed outside the bathroom door . . . [and] looped to a delay and sent back upstairs to the mix room!! Echo ‘chambers’ were not yet invented!” See M. Schott, “The Album Cover Art Gallery,” Tralfaz Archives, www.tralfaz-archives.com/coverart/F/Ferrante/ferrante_soundproof.html.
10. Adinolfi, Mondo Exotica, 156.
11. Liner notes, Pete Rugolo, Music from Out of Space, Mercury Sr 60118, 1959, LP.
12. Ibid.
13. Martin Denny, Primitiva, Rev-Ola CR REV 103, 2005, CD; original release, Liberty LRP 3087, 1958, LP.
14. Esquivel and His Orchestra, Other Worlds, Other Sounds, RCA Victor 74321 35747 2, 1996, CD; original release, RCA Victor LSP-1753, 1958, LP.
15. Qtd. in Adinolfi, Mondo Exotica, 152.
16. Esquivel and His Orchestra, Exploring New Sounds in Hi-Fi Stereo, RCA Victor 74321 47871 2, 1997, CD; original release, RCA Victor, LPM-1978, 1958, LP. The Ondioline was an electronic keyboard instrument designed and manufactured in France by Georges Jenny. Capable of a rich palette of sounds, it was a vacuum-tube precursor to the synthesizer.
17. Les Baxter, Space Escapade, El Records ACMEM 171CD, 2009, CD; original release, Capitol T-968, 1958, LP.
18. Ibid., liner notes.
19. Russ Garcia, Fantastica, Liberty T-7005, 1958, LP.
20. Ibid.
21. Richard Marino, Out of this World, Liberty LMM 13007, 1961, LP, cover copy.
22. Marty Manning, The Twilight Zone, Columbia CL 1586, 1961, LP, cover copy.
23. Frank Comstock, Project Comstock: Music from Outer Space, Warner Brothers WS 1463, 1962, LP, cover copy.
24. Adinolfi, Mondo Exotica, 146.
25. Betty Carter, Out There with Betty Carter, Blue Moon BMCD 1622, 2005, CD; original release, Peacock PLP 90, 1958, LP.
26. Duke Ellington, “The Race for Space,” in The Duke Ellington Reader, ed. Mark Tucker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 296.
27. Sam Lazar, Space Flight, Universal Victor MVCJ-19120, 1998, CD; original Argo LP-4002, 1960, LP.
28. Grant Green, Born to Be Blue, Blue Note CPD 7 84432 2, 1989, CD; original release, Blue Note BST 84432, 1985 (recorded 1962), LP. Lou Donaldson, The Natural Soul, Blue Note CDP 7 84108 2, 1989, CD; original release, Blue Note BLP 4108, 1962, LP.
29. John Coltrane, Sun Ship, Impulse! AS 9211, 1995, CD; original release, Impulse! AS-9211, 1971, LP.
30. George Russell, Jazz in the Space Age, American Jazz Classics 99024, 2011, CD; original release, Decca DL 9219, 1960, LP.
31. Corbett, “Obscure Past, Bright Future,” in Corbett, Elms, and Kapsalis, Traveling the Spaceways, 38. The description of those flying nymphets comes from the record jacket.
32. Sun Ra, “[I always called myself Sun Ra],” In The Immeasurable Equation, 457.
33. Sun Ra, “In This Age,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 465.
CHAPTER 16: SPACE MUSIC
1. Sun Ra, Interstellar Low Ways, cover copy.
2. Tom Buchler, “The Making of Lanquidity,” Sun Ra Arkive 2 (2003): 34, www.the-temple.net/astroblack/sunraarkive/issue2/sra2p_34.html.
3. Rycenga, interview with Sun Ra, November 2, 1988, part one, 5.
4. “A Treatise on Rebirth and the Law of Consequence,” 8, AAC, box 15, folder 9.
5. Ibid. I have made light editorial emendations.
6. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 111.
7. Qtd. in ibid., 258–259.
8. Qtd. in ibid., 298.
9. Qtd. from a note in Abraham’s hand describing the musicians with Sun Ra “from the beginning,” AAC, box 14, folder 1.
10. “Interview with Sun Ra Pt. 2,” AAC, box 13, folder 9.
11. Sun Ra, “[I always called myself Sun Ra],” in The Immeasurable Equation, 457.
12. Ibid.
13. Sun Ra, Sun Song, liner notes.
14. Sun Ra, “[I am not of this planet],” in The Immeasurable Equation, 460.
15. See Szwed, Space Is the Place, 183–195.
16. Ibid., 194.
17. Ibid.
18. For a discussion of the relationship between free jazz and the Black Arts Movement, see Lorenzo Thomas, “Ascension: Music and the Black Arts Movement,” in Jazz among the Discourses, ed. Krin Gabbard (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995), 256–273.
19. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 190.
20. Ibid., 191.
21. Ibid., 187.
22. Ibid.
23. Sun Ra, Sun Ra Visits Planet Earth, Evidence 22039, 1992, CD; original release, Saturn 9956-11-A/B, 1966 LP.
24. Sun Ra, Sound Sun Pleasure!!, Evidence 22014, 1992, CD; original release, Saturn 512, 1966 LP.
25. Sun Ra, Nubians of Plutonia, Evidence 22066, 1993, CD; originally released as Sun Ra, Lady with the Golden Stockings, Saturn Sr 9956-11E/F, 1966, LP.
26. Sun Ra, We Travel the Space Ways, Evidence 22038, 1992, CD; original release, Saturn HK 5445, 1966, LP. Sun Ra, Fate in a Pleasant Mood, Evidence 22068, 1993, CD; original release, Saturn 9956-2-A/B, 1965, LP. Readers curious about chronology should consult Robert L. Campbell and Christopher Trent’s meticulous discography, The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra.
27. Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 338.
28. Writing in the Chicago Daily News on February 20, 1962, Tony Weitzel memorably describes the Arkestra’s New York landing: “Chicago’s Le Sun Ra took his Cosmic Space Jazz Group to New York and spooked the critics into a tizzy. (His stuff sounds like a Chinese opera in an earthquake).” AAC, box 132, folder 2.
29. Sun Ra, The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra, Savoy Jazz SVY 17259, 2003, CD; original release, Savoy MG12169, 1961, LP. Sun Ra, Bad and Beautiful, Evidence 22038, 1992, CD; original release, Saturn 532, 1972, LP.
30. This draft appears in a notebook that also contains many equations, poems, doodles, drawings, phone numbers, and other miscellanea, all in Sun Ra’s hand; see AAC, box 13, folder 9.
31. R. Cargill Hall, Lunar Impact: The NASA History of Project Ranger (1977; repr., Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010), 256–270.
32. Sun Ra, Secrets of the Sun, Atavistic ALP266CD, 2008, CD; original Saturn GH 9954 E/F, 1965, LP. Sun Ra, Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow, Evidence 22036, 1992, CD; original release, Saturn 9956, 1965, LP.
33. Sun Ra, When Sun Comes Out, Evidence 22068, 1993, CD; original release, Saturn 2066, 1963, LP. Sun Ra, The Invisible Shield, Black Lion CD 877640-2 (titled Janus), 2000, CD; original Saturn 529, 1974, LP.
34. Sun Ra, When Angels Speak of Love, Evidence 22216-2, 2000, CD; original release, Saturn 1966, 1966, LP. Sun Ra, Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy, Evidence 22036, 1992, CD; original release, Saturn 408, 1967 LP.
35. Sun Ra, Sun Ra Featuring Pharoah Sanders and Black Harold, ESP-Disk’ 4054, 2009, CD; original release, ESP-Disk’ 4054, 1974, LP.
36. Sun Ra, Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume 1, ESP-Disk’ 1014-2, 1992, CD; original release, ESP-Disk’ 1014, 1965, LP. Sun Ra, Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume 2, ESP Disk’ 1017-2, 1993, CD; original release, ESP-Disk’ 1017, 1966, LP. Sun Ra, The Magic City, Evidence 22069, 1993, CD; original release, Saturn LPB 711, 1966, LP.
37. Sun Ra, Strange Strings, Atavistic ALP263CD, 2007, CD; original release, Thoth Intergalactic KH-5472, 1967, LP. Sun Ra, Outer Spaceways Incorporated, 3 discs, Freedom CD 740147 (titled Spaceways), 1998, CDs; original release, Saturn 143000A/B, 1974, LP. Sun Ra, Nothing Is.
38. This accounting of Sun Ra’s 1960s output is by no means complete. See Campbell and Trent, The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra, for full details.
39. Qtd. in Tam Fiofori, “Sun Ra’s Space Odyssey,” Down Beat 37, May 1970, 14.
40. Bill Mathieu, “Other Planes of There & Sun Ra and his Solar Arkestra Visit Planet Earth,” Down Beat, June 1966, 32. Archived at AAC, box 4, folder 9.
41. Sun Ra, “[I always called myself Sun Ra],” 457.
42. Qtd. in Fiofori, “Sun Ra’s Space Odyssey,” 14.
43. John L. Wasserman, “Sun Ra—A Man for the Space Age,” Sun Ra Research 2 (July 1995): 9.
44. Sun Ra, Angels and Demons at Play, Evidence 22066, 1993, CD; original release, Saturn Sr 9956-2-O/P, 1965, LP.
45. I’m describing “Reflects Motion” as originally released on Saturn and reissued by Atavistic. The original take was longer on both ends, making for a variety of available versions.
46. Fred Moten, In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), 89.
47. The quote is Sun Ra’s response to the drunken question, “What’s happenin’?” in the film Space Is the Place, directed by John Coney (North American Star Systems, 1974; rerelease, Plexifilms, 2003, DVD).
48. Sun Ra, “[I always called myself Sun Ra],” 458.
49. Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 216.
50. Hinds and Hinds, conversation with Sun Ra, October 13, 1984, 4.
51. Szwed describes the “space chord” as “a collectively improvised tone cluster at high volume” that creates “a new mood, opening up fresh tonal areas” (Space Is the Place, 214).
52. Carnegie Hall Concert Program, AAC, box 22, folder 5.
53. The Forbidden Playground, directed by Maxine Haleff, 1968. Szwed describes the Carnegie Hall performances in Space Is the Place, 253–254.
54. Carnegie Hall Concert Program, AAC, box 22, folder 5.
CHAPTER 17: MYTH-SCIENCE
1. Sun Ra modified the Arkestra’s name at whim, apparently to suit circumstances, mood, and agenda. Szwed (Space Is the Place, 95) counts over fifty different versions. Among my favorite are a few he doesn’t mention: Sun Ra and the Intergalactic Jet Set Bible Belt Smasher Omniverse Infinity Arkestra, Sun Ra and his American Destiny-Changing Arkestra, and Sun Ra and his Outer Space Love Adventure Jet Set Arkestra. See Campbell and Trent, The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra, for the full panoply.
2. Sun Ra, Secrets of the Sun; Sun Ra, Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow; Sun Ra, Strange Strings.
3. Sun Ra, Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy. This title refers to an incident, corroborated by an entry in one of Abraham’s notebooks, that took place during an Arkestra gig at a mental hospital. Here’s Szwed: “While [the band was] playing, a woman who it was said had not moved or spoken for years got up from the floor, walked directly to [Sun Ra’s] piano, and cried out, ‘Do you call that music?’ Sonny was delighted with her response, and told the story for years afterwards as evidence of the healing powers of music” (Space Is the Place, 92).
4. A few of the El Saturn LPs that bear this blurb on the back cover include the following: Sun Ra, Atlantis, Evidence 22067, 1993, CD; original release, Saturn ESR 507, 1969, LP. Sun Ra, Continuation, Corbett vs. Dempsey CvsD CD009, 2013, CD; original release, Saturn 520, 1970, LP. Sun Ra, My Brother the Wind, Saturn 521, 1970, LP. Sun Ra, Discipline 27-II, Saturn 538, 1973, quadraphonic LP. Sun Ra, Soul Vibrations of Man.
5. Sun Ra, “The Air Spiritual Man,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 451.
6. Sun Ra, “Of Notness,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 268.
7. Sun Ra, “Music of the Spheres,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 243.
8. Ibid.
9. Sun Ra, “Black Prince Charming,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 82.
10. Sun Ra, “The Air Spiritual Man,” 451.
11. Ibid., 450.
12. Ibid, 451.
13. “Afrofuturism” is a lively contemporary cultural movement that crosses blackness with visions of the future, especially as imagined through new technologies and new media. The cultural critic Mark Dery coined the term in Flame Wars (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993), 180. The term appears there in “Black to the Future,” an interview that he conducted with Samuel Delaney, Greg Tate, and Tricia Rose. Alondra Nelson established a website devoted to Afrofuturism and gave the term academic credibility in “Afrofuturism,” ed. Nelson, special issue, Social Text 20, no. 2 (2002), which was devoted to the subject. See also Kodwo Eshun, “Further Considerations on Afrofuturism,” New Centennial Review 3, no. 2 (2003): 287–302. Signaling the movement’s currency, Ytasha L. Womack published a book entitled Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2013). The gamut of musical Afrofuturism runs from the space funk of Parliament/Funkadelic and the hip-hop futurism of Deltron 3030 to the deep house of Hieroglyphic Being or the electronica of Ras G to the more recent pop outings of Janelle Monáe. See chapter 21 of this book, “Continuation.”
14. Sun Ra, “The Visitation,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 414.
15. Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 332.
16. Sun Ra, “The Outer Darkness (1972, version 1),” in The Immeasurable Equation, 294.
17. Sun Ra, “The Outer Darkness (1972, version 2),” in The Immeasurable Equation, 295.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Sun Ra, “Astro Black,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 74. The poem is sung on Sun Ra, Astro Black, Impulse! AS-9255, 1973, quadraphonic LP.
21. Sun Ra, “Message to Black Youth” (1971), in The Immeasurable Equation, 240.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid., 241.
25. Sun Ra, “The Black Rays Race,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 83.
26. Sun Ra, “[I always called myself Sun Ra],” in The Immeasurable Equation, 458.
27. Sun Ra, “My Music is Words,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 467.
28. Ibid., 468.
29. Deborah Ray, interview with Sun Ra, American Black Journal, Detroit Public Television, 1981, available online at http://abj.matrix.msu.edu/videofull.php?id=29-DF-13.
30. Peter Hinds, conversation with Sun Ra, December 11, 1989, Sun Ra Research 32 (February 2001): 19.
31. Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 298.
32. Ibid., 256.
33. Brent Hayes Edwards, “The Race for Space: Sun Ra’s Poetry,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 32.
34. Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 316.
35. Draft for articles of incorporation, Saturn “II” Research, AAC, box 17, folder 7. A facsimile of this draft appears in Corbett, Elms, and Kapsakis, Pathways to Unknown Worlds, 98.
36. Sun Ra, My Brother the Wind, Volume II, Evidence 22040, 1992, CD; original release, Saturn 523, 1971, LP.
37. Sun Ra, “The Air Spiritual Man,” 328.
38. Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 315.
39. Sun Ra, “Happy Space Age To You,” Esquire: The Magazine for Men, July 1969, 5.
CHAPTER 18: BLACK MAN IN THE COSMOS
1. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 266. Receipts from a rent book covering the years 1969 through 1972 show “Mr. Sun Ra” paying ninety dollars a month in rent to Mrs. Henrietta Allen (AAC, box 15, folder 6). Sun Ra’s Philadelphia years deserve much fuller treatment than this or most other studies provide. One happy exception is chapter 14 (“Sun Ra: Composer from Saturn”) in Randall Grass, Great Spirits: Portraits of Life-Changing World Music Artists (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009), 31–60.
2. Peter Hinds, conversation with Tommy Hunter, April 13, 1998, Sun Ra Research 33 (April 2001): 44–45.
3. The success of Jimi Hendrix helped Miles see the possibilities in performing for large venues. See Miles Davis with Quincy Trope, Miles: The Autobiography (New York: Touchstone, 1989), 291–310.
4. John Sinclair, “Self-Determination Music,” Jazz and Pop, August 1970, 49.
5. Sun Ra graced the cover of Rolling Stone’s April 19, 1969, issue.
6. See notebooks and financial records, AAC, boxes 20 and 22; and Campbell and Trent, The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra.
7. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 249.
8. Ibid., 250.
9. Ibid., 257. Grass (Great Spirits, 50) characterizes such performances as “a strange mix of improvisation, orchestration, spirituality, solemn ritual, apparent nonsense, humor, showbiz spectacle, and astonishing musicianship.”
10. Invented by Bob Sebastian and used extensively by Sun Ra, the Outer Space Visual Communicator (OVC) consisted of a huge bank of switches and seven foot pedals that allowed an artist to make “visual music” in constantly shifting colors and patterns. See “Visual Music Systems, Inc.,” visualmusicsystems.com, www.visualmusicsystems.com/ovc.htm.
11. Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 364.
12. Sun Ra, “My Music is Words,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 460.
13. Peter Hinds, conversation with Sun Ra, June 17, 1988, Sun Ra Research 24 (August 1999): 2.
14. Rycenga, “Interview with Sun Ra” [1988].
15. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 310. Consult, for instance, the radio-broadcast recording released as Sun Ra, The Antique Blacks, Art Yard, ARTYARD CD 010, 2009, CD; original release, Saturn 81774, 1974, LP.
16. Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 312.
17. Program for concert for the Pan Africa Study Tour Committee, University of California at Berkeley, AAC, box 3, folder 53.
18. Ray, interview with Sun Ra.
19. John Hinds and Peter Hinds, “December 4, 1985, Oakland, CA,” Sun Ra Research 1 (May 1995): 5.
20. A copy of the recorded lecture, as well as Sun Ra’s syllabus for “The Black Man and the Cosmos,” appears at the Open Culture website, www.openculture.com/2014/07/full-lecture-and-reading-list-from-sun-ras-1971-uc-berkeley-course.html. The lecture also appears on Sun Ra, The Creator of the Universe, two discs, Transparency 0301, n.d., CD.
21. Yosef A. A. Ben-Yochannan, Black Man of the Nile and His Family (New York: Black Classics, 1972); Henry Dumas, Ark of Bones and Other Stories, ed. Eugene B. Redman (New York: Random House, 1974); LeRoi Jones and Larry Neal, eds., Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing (New York: William Morrow, 1968). Szwed provides a fuller account of Sun Ra’s syllabus in Space Is the Place, 294.
22. See Szwed, Space Is the Place, 329–330. For an illuminating discussion of the relationship between Sun Ra’s politics and the Panthers, see Kreiss, “Appropriating the Master’s Tools,” 57–81.
23. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 329–330.
24. “Sun Ra Talks On ‘The Possibility of Altered Destiny,’” Sun Ra (The Sun Ra Arkestra), Live from Soundscape, two discs, DIW 388, 1979, CD, disc 2.
CHAPTER 19: SPACE IS THE PLACE
1. “Synopsis,” Space Is the Place, AAC, box 3, folder 6.
2. All quotations come from the rereleased version of the movie with restored footage, Space Is the Place: Sun Ra and His Intergalactic Solar Arkestra, dir. John Coney (Plexifilm, 2003), DVD. See also the more recent rerelease by Harte Recordings, Space Is the Place, limited edition (Harte Recordings, 2015), which contains commentary by the producer Jim Newman and essays by the director John Coney and the screenwriter Seth Hill.
3. The word “utopia” originates with Sir Thomas More’s book of the same name, published in 1516. It is a pun Sun Ra would have liked: “eu-topia” sounds the same but means “happy place.”
4. Sun Ra, “My Music is Words,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 467.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid., 468.
7. Ibid., 471.
8. Hinds and Hinds, “December 4, 1985, Oakland, CA,” 5.
9. Ibid., 1.
10. Closing chant, Atlantis.
11. Sun Ra’s first recorded encounter with the Moog synthesizer (a modular model, according to Campbell and Trent) is found on My Brother the Wind, recorded in 1969.
12. Peter Hinds, conversation with Robert Moog, September 9, 1991, Sun Ra Research 30 (October 2000): 42.
13. Ibid.
14. Qtd. in Trevor Pinch and Frank Tracco, Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 72.
15. Ibid., 234.
16. Qtd. in ibid., 235.
17. Henry Dumas, “An Interview with Sun Ra: Excerpts from a Longer Article (In Progress),” Hiram Poetry Review 3 (1967): 32. Archived at AAC, box 1, folder 4.
18. Qtd. in Pinch and Tracco, Analog Days, 223.
19. Ibid., 233.
20. Nat Hentoff, “The New Jazz,” Newsweek, December 12, 1966, 101. Archived at AAC, box 1, folder 3.
21. These lines, frequently repeated in performance, also appear in Sun Ra, The Immeasurable Equation, 331.
22. Jim Newman, producer of Space Is the Place, confirms Johnnie Keyes’s role in the movie (personal communication).
23. Sun Ra’s remark about the NAACP appears in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 332.
24. These lines also acquire recitative force and appear in two slightly different versions in Sun Ra, The Immeasurable Equation, 164, 392.
25. Sun Ra, Space is the Place, Impulse! IMPD 249, 1998, CD; original release, Blue Thumb BTS 41, 1973, LP. Sun Ra, Astro Black. Sun Ra, Discipline 27-II.
26. “Intergalactic Correspondence,” 3, AAC, box 3, folder 8.
27. Ibid., 6.
28. Ibid., 9.
29. Ibid., 5.
30. Ibid., 7.
31. Ibid., 10.
32. AAC, box 13, folder 7. All following quotations in this chapter come from this source.
CHAPTER 20: TOKENS OF HAPPINESS
1. Sun Ra, Space is the Place. Campbell and Trent (The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra, 191) note that “a second Blue Thumb LP from these sessions was planned but never issued. The master seems to have been lost.”
2. Ed Michel, “Ed Michel’s Complete Liner Notes for Impulse’s Space is the Place Re-issue,” Sun Ra Arkive 2 (2003): 24, www.the-temple.net/astroblack/sunraarkive/issue2/sra2p_24.html.
3. Ed Michel, “Ed Michel’s Complete Liner Notes for Evidence’s ‘The Great Lost Sun Ra Albums,’” Sun Ra Arkive 2 (Jan. 2003): 29, www.the-temple.net/astroblack/sunraarkive/issue2/sra2p_29.html.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Sun Ra, Pathways to Unknown Worlds, Evidence 22218, 2000, CD; original release, Impulse! ASD-9298, 1975, quadraphonic LP. The latter two recordings (Impulse! AS-9296 and AS-9297, respectively) saw release as a two-disc boxed set under the title The Great Lost Sun Ra Albums: Cymbals and Crystal Spears, Evidence ECD 22217-2, 2000, CD.
7. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 333.
8. Qtd. in ibid.
9. Ibid., 334.
10. For those interested in getting a feel for the Arkestra’s stage show, video of these performances is a good place to start. Sun Ra and an abbreviated Arkestra appeared on Saturday Night Live on May 20th, 1978. A clip from the performance can be downloaded for free from WFMU’s “Beware of the Blog,” http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2005/11/sun_ra_vs_satur.html. The video is grainy, but the playing, chanting, and dancing is gorgeous, especially on “Space is the Place” and “Sound Mirror.” Sun Ra and another avatar of the Arkestra played Michelob Presents Night Music, hosted by the saxophonist David Sanborn, on December 10, 1989. It’s a rollicking performance, particularly of “You Got to Face the Music,” and can be found on YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qjiQwD7VCI.
11. The National Endowment for the Arts first bestowed the Jazz Master distinction in 1982. Other recipients that year were the trumpet players Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie.
12. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 358.
13. “Sun Ra,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Ra.
14. Jack Lloyd, “Sun Ra and His Airs So Rare,” Philadelphia Inquirer, December 23, 1988, http://articles.philly.com/1988-12-23/entertainment/26225363_1_arkestra-sun-ra-outer-space.
15. Howard Reich, “Sun Ra Dazzles New Fans with His Arkestra,” Chicago Tribune, October 1, 1990, http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1990-10-01/news/9003210842_1_arkestra-sun-ra-marshall-allen.
16. Rich Theis, “Sun Ra,” Option, September–October 1983, 50.
17. Sun Ra, Holiday for Soul Dance, Evidence 22011, 1992; original release, Saturn ESR 508, 1970, LP.
18. Campbell and Trent, The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra.
19. Szwed (Space Is the Place, 225) describes the chagrin of the saxophonist Russell Procope (who played for Fletcher Henderson early in his career) “when he heard John Gilmore reproduce the same mistake he had made on an original 1933 recording with the Henderson band.”
20. See Dan and Dale (as “The Sensational Guitars of Dan & Dale”), Batman and Robin, Universe UV 016, 2001, CD; original release, Tifton S-78002, 1966, LP. The Dan and Dale group was an avatar of the Blues Project, which included Al Kooper and Steve Katz. “I’m Gonna Unmask the Batman” was written by Alton Abraham and the Saturn recording artist Lacy Gibson.
21. Campbell and Trent, The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra, 599–603.
22. John Gilmore, liner notes, Sun Ra, Super-Sonic Jazz, CD.
23. Performance flyer, AAC, box 3, folder 54.
24. The other tracks on the recording are “Spontaneous Simplicity,” “Lights on a Satellite,” “Ombre Monde #2” (Shadow World), “A Salutation from the Universe,” and “Calling Planet Earth”—a typical set of space music. The actual show was of course much longer than six tunes. See Campbell and Trent, The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra; and Sun Ra, Live in Paris at the “Gibus,” Universe, UV 079, 2003, CD (original release, Atlantic 40540, 1975, LP). It is worth remembering that the title for an early LP containing mostly standards was Sound Sun Pleasure!! (recorded 1958 and released 1970).
25. Reich, “Sun Ra Dazzles New Fans.”
26. Sun Ra, St. Louis Blues: Solo Piano, Improvising Artists Inc. 123858-2, 1992, CD; original release, Improvising Artists Inc. IAI 37.38.58, 1978, LP.
27. Sun Ra (The Sun Ra Arkestra), Live at Praxis, 1984, Golden Years of New Jazz GY5/6, 2000, CD; also released as a two-disc set, Vinyl Lovers 901110, 2010, LP; originally released as three discs: 1, Praxis CM 108, 1984, LP; 2, Praxis CM 109, 1985, LP; 3, Praxis CM 110, 1986, LP. Other recordings that capture the Arkestra’s joyous celebration of swing include Sun Ra (Sun Ra Arkestra), Sunrise in Different Dimensions, hatOLOGY 698, 2011, CD (original release, two discs, Hat Hut Records 2R17, 1981, LP); and Sun Ra, Unity, two discs, Horo HDP 19–20, 1978, LP.
28. John Litweiler, “Mood Swings Fire Sun Ra’s Jazz Orbit,” Chicago Tribune, September 9, 1988, http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1988-09-09/features/8801290107_1_arkestra-sun-ra-jazz-band.
29. Sun Ra (The Sun Ra Arkestra), Reflections in Blue, Black Saint BSR 0101 CD, 1987, CD; original release, Black Saint BSR 0101, 1987, LP.
30. Sun Ra (The Sun Ra Arkestra), Hours After, Black Saint, 120 111-2, 1989, CD; original release, Black Saint 120 111-1, 1989, LP.
31. Sun Ra, Blue Delight, A&M SP 5260, 1989, CD; SP5630, 1989, LP.
32. Ibid., liner notes.
33. Sun Ra, Purple Night, A&M 75021 5324 2, 1990, CD.
34. Peter Hinds, conversation with Sun Ra, December 25, 1987, Sun Ra Research 35 (October 2001): 36.
CHAPTER 21: CONTINUATION
1. Lady Gaga, “Venus,” Artpop, Streamline/Interscope, 2013, CD.
2. RocketNumberNine [Ben Page and Tom Page], You Reflect Me, Trace DIG003, 2009, MP3. Zombie Zombie, Rocket Number 9 EP, Versatile VER079, 2012, LP. Yo La Tengo, Nuclear War, Matador, OLE 568-2, 2002, CD. Sun Ra, Nuclear War, Atavistic USM/ALP222CD, 2001, CD; original release, Y Records RA 2, 1984, LP.
3. John Coltrane, Interstellar Space, Impulse! 314 543 415-2, 2000, CD; original release, Impulse! ASD 9277, 1974, LP.
4. Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 77–78. A list, written in Abraham’s hand, identifying “the many musicians Sun Ra has helped thru the years” includes the following: “John Coltrane; Tenor. Spiritual Advice” (AAC, box 13, folder 13).
5. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 210.
6. Amiri Baraka [LeRoi Jones] and Sun Ra and the Myth-Science Arkestra, A Black Mass, Son Boy Records 1, 1999, CD; original release, Jihad Productions 1968, 1968, LP.
7. Qtd. in Szwed, Space Is the Place, 210. The remark originally appeared in Black World 20 (1971): 206. The typographical high jinks belong to Baraka. He also emphasized the connection between Sun Ra and the New Thing in his “Apple Cores” columns for Down Beat. See Baraka, Black Music, 126–139. On free jazz as a social practice, see Iain Anderson, This Is Our Music: Free Jazz, the Sixties, and American Culture (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007); Daniel Fischlin, Ajay Heble, and George Lipsitz, The Fierce Urgency of Now: Improvisation, Rights, and the Ethics of Cocreation (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013). On the musical conventions of free jazz, see Ekkehard Jost, Free Jazz (New York: Da Capo, 1994).
8. Gilmore left the Arkestra for a stretch in 1964 to tour Japan and Europe with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.
9. Sun Ra, “My Music is Words,” in The Immeasurable Equation, 469–470.
10. Amiri Baraka [LeRoi Jones], “Apple Cores #3,” in Black Music, 129.
11. Albert Ayler, Spiritual Unity, ESP Disk’ 1002, 2005, CD; original release, ESP Disk’ 1002, 1965, LP. Ornette Coleman, Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation, Rhino R275208, 1998, CD; original release, Atlantic SD 1364, 1961, LP. Archie Shepp, Four for Trane, Impulse! IMPD 218, 1997, CD; original release, Impulse! A-71, 1964, LP. John Coltrane, Ascension, Impulse! B0012401-02, 2009, CD; original release, Impulse! AS-95, 1965, LP.
12. Qtd. in liner notes to Sun Ra, Interstellar Low Ways.
13. Terry Moran, review of The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Sounds and Fury, April 1966, n.p. Archived at AAC, box 4, folder 7.
14. Ibid.
15. Mathieu, “Other Planes of There.”
16. Qtd. in Peter Shapiro, “Blues and the Abstract Truth,” philcohran.com, www.philcohran.com/pc_wr_fr.htm.
17. George Lewis, A Power Stronger Than Itself: The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 116.
18. Phil Cohran and the Artistic Heritage Ensemble, On the Beach, Zulu Records 0004, 1968, LP. Phil Cohran and the Artistic Heritage Ensemble, Malcolm X Memorial, Zulu Records MR-016, 1968, LP.
19. Shapiro, “Blues and the Abstract Truth.”
20. Art Ensemble of Chicago, People in Sorrow, Odeon CJ32–5013, 1988, CD; original release, Nessa Records N-3, 1968, LP. Art Ensemble of Chicago, Les Stances á Sophie, Soul Jazz Records CD191, 2008, CD; original release, Pathé 2C 062–11365, 1970, LP.
21. iCrates, “Interview with Idris Ackamoor of ‘The Pyramids,’” http://blog.culturalodyssey.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/2.-iCrates-master.pdf.
22. Robert Hurwitt, “Idris Ackamoor, Cultural Odyssey Evolving,” SFGate.com, www.sfgate.com/performance/article/Idris-Ackamoor-Cultural-Odyssey-evolving-5371505.php.
23. The Pyramids, Lalibela, Pyramid Records 3093, 1973, LP. The Pyramids, King of Kings, Pyramid Records 3093-4, 1974, LP. The Pyramids, Birth/Speed/Merging, Pyramid Records 30935, 1976, LP.
24. This phrase appears in a description accompanying a YouTube clip (still image only) of the Pyramids’ “Aomawa,” www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6wJJUKN-uQ.
25. Idris Ackamoor, The Music of Idris Ackamoor, 1971–2004, two discs, EM Records EM1062DCD, 2006, CD.
26. The Pyramids, Otherworldly, Cultural Odyssey CO-183-5, 2011, CD.
27. iCrates, “Interview with Idris Ackamoor.”
28. Sean Kitching, “Playing the Cosmo Song: Thurston Moore and John Sinclair on Sun Ra,” The Quietus, http://thequietus.com/articles/15387-john-sinclair-thurston-moore-interview.
29. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 243.
30. White Panther News Service, “For Immediate Release,” Sun Ra Research 5 (February 1996): 12.
31. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 245.
32. Kitching, “Playing the Cosmo Song.” Moore must be referring to “Rocket Reducer No. 62 (Rama Lama Fa Fa Fa)” or more likely the last track on Kick Out the Jams, entitled “Starship.”
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid. Sun Ra, Out There A Minute, Blast First BFFP 42, 1989, CD.
35. Kitching, “Playing the Cosmo Song.”
36. See, for instance, the following: Marc Ribot (Marc Ribot y Los Cubanos Postizos), The Prosthetic Cubans, Atlantic 83116-2, 1998, CD. Marc Ribot (Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog), Party Intellectuals, PI Recordings PI 27, 2008, CD. Marc Ribot (Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog), Your Turn, Northern Spy NSCD 038, 2013, CD. Marc Ribot (The Marc Ribot Trio), Live at the Village Vanguard, PI Recordings PI 153, 2014, CD.
37. Here’s a sampling: Need New Body, Need New Body, File 13 Records FT41, CD. The Thing and Neneh Cherry, The Cherry Thing, Smalltown Supersound STS229, 2012, CD. Shibusashirazu Orchestra, Lost Direction, Moers Music 03016CD, 2005, CD. Shibusashirazu Orchestra, Paris Shibu Bokyoku: Live at Maison de la Culture du Japon à Paris, two discs, Chitei Records BF41/42F, 2008, CD. Amayo’s Fu-Arkist-Ra, Afrobeat Disciples (1st Kung Fu Lesson of Life), Amenawon, 2001, CD.
38. Alondra Nelson, “Introduction: Future Texts,” in Nelson, Afrofuturism, 9.
39. In a 1974 interview with The News (Mexico City), Sun Ra described his music as a sort of “auto-futurism” that “represents part of the life of people who never lived” (AAC, box 133, folder 9).
40. The song appears on George Clinton and Parliament’s The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein, Casablanca 842 620-2, 1990, CD; original release, Casablanca NBLP 7034, 1976, LP.
41. Qtd. in George Lipsitz, Footsteps in the Dark: The Hidden Histories of Popular Music (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007), 104.
42. George Clinton and Parliament, Chocolate City, Casablanca 836 700-2, 1990, CD; original release, Casablanca NBLP 7014, 1975, LP. George Clinton and Parliament, The Mothership Connection, Casablanca 824 502-2, 1990, CD; original release, Casablanca NBLP 7022, 1975, LP. George Clinton and Parliament, Funkentelechy vs. The Placebo Syndrome, Casablanca 824 501-2, 1990, CD; original release, Casablanca NBLP 7084, 1977, LP.
43. “P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up),” The Mothership Connection.
44. Ibid.
45. George Clinton and Parliament, “Prelude,” Clones of Dr. Funkenstein.
46. George Clinton: The Mothership Connection, prod. George Clinton, Pioneer Artists, 1998, DVD. The film documents the early days of the P-Funk Earth Tour, which would last almost two years, and contains footage of a concert at Hofheinz Pavilion in Houston, Texas.
47. Sun Ra, “UFO,” On Jupiter, Art Yard, ARTYARD CD 204, 2005, CD; original release, Saturn 101679, 1979, LP.
48. Listen, too, to Sun Ra, Lanquidity, Evidence 22220-2, 2000, CD; original release, Philly Jazz PJ 666, 1978, LP. Funk gets lyrical and groove turns interstellar transport.
49. Kitching, “Playing the Cosmo Song.”
50. Afrika Bambaataa and the SoulSonic Force, Planet Rock, Tommy Boy TB 823, 1982, LP single.
51. “Afrika Bambaataa,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrika_Bambaataa.
52. Kool Keith’s breakthrough came with Ultramagnetic MCs on Critical Beatdown, Next Plateau Records PLCD 1013, 1988, CD.
53. “Dr. Octagon,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Octagon.
54. Kool Keith, “3000,” Dr. Octagonecologyst, Bulk Recordings CD902, 1996, CD.
55. Deltron 3030 [Dan the Automator, Del the Funky Homosapien, and Kid Koala], Deltron 3030, 75 Ark 75033, 2000, CD.
56. Madvillain [Daniel Dumile and Otis Jackson Jr.], Madvillainy, Stones Throw Records STH2065, 2004, CD.
57. Paul D. Miller, Viral Sonata, Asphodel ASP0976, 1997, CD. DJ Spooky [Paul D. Miller], Celestial Mechanix, two discs, Thirsty Ear THI57148.1, 2004, CD. Azaelia Banks, Fantasea, self-release, 2012, MP3.
58. Janelle Monáe, ArchAndroid, two discs, Badboy Entertainment 512256-1, 2010, LP. Janelle Monáe, The Electric Lady, Badboy Entertainment 536102-2, 2013, CD.
59. Szwed, Space Is the Place, 376.
60. Sun Ra, New Steps, Atomic Records 76812, 2009, CD; original release, two discs, Horo HPD 25–26, 1978, LP. Sun Ra, Unity.
61. Sun Ra, Disco 3000, Art Yard ARTYARD CD 101, 2009, CD; original release, Saturn CMIJ 78, 1978, LP. Sun Ra, Media Dream, Art Yard ARTYARD CD 002, 2008, CD; original release, Saturn 1978, 1978, LP.
62. Charles Cohen, Music for Dance and Theater, two discs, Morphine 021LP, 2013, LP.
63. Frédéric Galliano, Nangadef Maafric, What’s Up Records 9608, 1996, LP. The Avalanches, Electricity, XL Recordings 7243 5461680 4, 2001, CD; original release, Modular Recordings MODVL002, 1999, LP single. Sun Ra, Strange Celestial Road, Rounder 3035, 1988, CD; original release, Rounder 3035, 1980, LP.
64. Spaceboys, Sonic Fiction, Nylon Discographics NYLONCD007, 2003, CD. RocketNumberNine [Ben Page and Tom Page], MeYouWeYou, Smalltown Supersound STS241LP, 2013, LP.
65. The Dining Rooms, Tre, Schema SCCD 355, 2003, CD.
66. Freedom Satellite, “Astro Black (The Big Wow Mix),” Vienna Scientists V: The 10th Anniversary, Vienna Scientists Recordings VIE0 020 CD, 2009, CD.
67. Mono/Poly [Charles E. Dickerson], Golden Skies, Brainfeeder BFCD 046, 2014, CD.
68. Sun Araw [Cameron Stallones], Beach Head, Not for Fun Records NFF 140, 2008, LP. Consider, too, the synthesizer on Sun Araw’s collaboration Sun Araw and M. Geddes Gengras Meet the Congos: Icon Give Thank, FRKWYS vol. 9, RVNG International FRKWYS09, 2012, CD, DVD. Sun Rise Above (Sun R.A.), Every Day I Wake Up on the Wrong Side of Capitalism, self-release, 2001, CD.
69. Eshun, More Brilliant Than the Sun, 00(-002) [sic].
70. Ibid., 00(-005).
71. See “Sun Ra Changed My Life: 13 Artists Reflect on the Influence and Legacy of Sun Ra,” The Vinyl Factory, www.thevinylfactory.com/vinyl-factory-releases/sun-ra-changed-my-life-13-artists-reflect-on-the-legacy-and-influence-of-sun-ra/.
72. Osunlade, A Man with No Past Originating the Future, two discs, Yoruba Records YSD48, 2013, LP.
73. “Sun Ra Changed My Life.”
74. “Mike Huckaby Takes on Sun Ra for Reel-to-Reel Edits,” FACT, www.factmag.com/2011/03/08/mike-huckaby-takes-on-sun-ra-for-reel-to-reel-edits-vol-1/.
75. “UFO” and “Antique Blacks” appear on Mike Huckaby, Sun Ra: The Mike Huckaby Reel-to-Reel Edits, Volume 1, Kindred Spirits/Art Yard KSAY-MH01, 2011, twelve-inch LP. “To Nature’s God,” “Friendly Galaxy,” and “Space Is the Place” appear on Mike Huckaby, Sun Ra: The Mike Huckaby Reel-to-Reel Edits, Volume 2, Kindred Spirits/Art Yard KSAY MH02, 2011, twelve-inch LP.
76. Africa Hitech [Mark Pritchard and Steve Spacek], 93 Million Miles, Warp Records WARPCD 199, 2011, CD.
77. Flying Lotus [Steven Ellison], Cosmogramma, Warp Records WARPCD 195, 2010, CD.
78. Patrick Sisson, “Flying Lotus,” Pitchfork, http://pitchfork.com/features/interviews/7793-flying-lotus/.
79. Space Is the Place, dir. Coney.
80. Ras G [Gregory Shorter Jr.], “Back on the Planet,” Back on the Planet, two discs, Brainfeeder BF039, 2013, LP.
81. Ras G, “Natural Melanin Being,” Back on the Planet.
82. Hear it all at Ras G, “Cosmic Tones 4 Mental Therapy!!!!!!,” Soundcloud, https://soundcloud.com/ras_g/cosmic-tones-4-mental-therapy.
83. Ibid.
84. John Hinds, conversation with Sun Ra, October 31, 1991, Sun Ra Research 30 (October 2000): 28.
85. Von Freeman, The Improvisor, Premonition Records, 90757, 2002, CD. Matana Roberts, Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de Couleur Libres, two discs, Constellation CST079-1, 2011, LP.
86. Tortoise, TNT, Thrill Jockey THRILL 050, 1998, CD.
87. Chicago Underground, Boca Negra, Thrill Jockey THRILL 228, 2010, CD. Chicago Underground, Locus, Northern Spy NSCD 052, 2014, CD. Chad Taylor also plays drums with the Marc Ribot Trio.
88. Exploding Star Orchestra, We Are All From Somewhere Else, Thrill Jockey THRILL 181, 2007, CD.
89. Exploding Star Orchestra, Stars Have Shapes, Delmark DMK 595, 2010, CD.
90. Ken Vandermark, Free Jazz Classics, Vols. 1 and 2, two discs, Atavistic ALP137CD, 2001, CD.
91. Ken Vandermark (Spaceways Incorporated), Thirteen Cosmic Standards by Sun Ra & Funkadelic. Atavistic ALP120CD, 2000, CD.
92. The Vandermark 5, Single Piece Flow, Atavistic ALP47CD, 1997, CD. The Vandermark 5, Annular Gift, Not Two Records MW 825-2, 2009, CD.
93. Tiger Hatchery, Sun Worship, ESP Disk’ ESP 5003, 2013, CD.
94. Rory Gibb, “Time for Harmony in This World: An Interview with Hieroglyphic Being,” The Quietus, http://thequietus.com/articles/10213-hieroglyphic-being-jamal-moss-interview.
95. Hieroglyphic Being (Jamal Moss), ANKH, Music From Mathematics MFM CD-010, 2010, CD. Hieroglyphic Being, The Sun Man Speaks, Music From Mathematics MFM CD-009, 2010, CD. Hieroglyphic Being, Cosmo Rhythmatic, Music From Mathematics MFM CD-018, 2011, CD. Hieroglyphic Being, Strange Strings, Music From Mathematics MFM CD-016, 2011, CD. Hieroglyphic Being, Seer of Cosmic Visions, two discs, Planet Mu ZIQ 349, 2014, LP.
96. Gibb, “Time for Harmony.”
97. Hieroglyphic Being, A Synthetic Love Life, two-discs, +++-+++ 10, 2013, LP.
98. Lauren Martin, “Ra’s House: An Interview with Fhloston Paradigm,” thump, http://thump.vice.com/en_uk/words/fhloston-paradigm-interview.
OUTRO: EXTENSIONS OUT
1. The following scenario of Sun Ra on his deathbed weaves together his words from a variety of sources. He passed from this planet in a hospital in Birmingham, Alabama, having traveled by train in the company of one of his musicians, the trumpeter Jothan Callins, from Philadelphia to his childhood home in bad health the previous January. Sun Ra’s sister, Mary Jenkins, cared for him until he required hospitalization. His earthly remains lie buried at Elmwood Cemetery in Birmingham. A sentence from Szwed’s biography inspires this closing meditation: “He had reached the seventy-ninth anniversary of his arrival on earth, but he had stopped trying to speak and now only grabbed the hands of those who reached out to him, gripping them so hard that it sometimes took two people to pry his fingers loose” (379).