"Szwed also makes a strong case for Sun Ra as creative genius."-- "Kirkus Reviews"Space Is the Place is an exhaustive, fascinating and ultimately humanizing account of Sun Ra's life."--Ian Patterson "All About Jazz" (5/8/2020 12:00:00 AM)Space is the Place traces the in-depth study that lay behind Ra's fascination with Ancient Egypt, etymology and space, while making a case for the idea that Ra's Afrocentric cosmology not only reflected the tumult of the 1950s and 1960s, but transcended it."--Mike Hobart "Financial Times"
A brilliant book, a sprawling, curlicued, swinging account of an extraordinary man's great adventure with a bunch of ideas that made sense to him out of a senseless world.
Compelling.
Chicago Sun-Times - Lloyd Sachs
Szwed is the best music biographer in the business.
John Szwed's excellent 1997 biography Space is the Place traces the in-depth study that lay behind Ra's fascination with Ancient Egypt, etymology and space, while making a case for the idea that Ra's Afrocentric cosmology not only reflected the tumult of the 1950s and 1960s, but transcended it.
Financial Times - Mike Hobart
The book consistently succeeds in making the idiosyncrasies of [Sun Ra] much less strange by placing them within the mainstreams of African American culture. . . . Szwed is especially convincing when he documents the origins of Sonny's unique blend of mysticism, Egyptology, Afrocentrism, and nonsense. . . . Thanks to Sun Ra, and to this extraordinary book by John Szwed, jazz must be conceived as something much richer than an austere art music.
American Music - Krin Gabbard
"Szwed has produced a rare jazz biography—one that takes full account of the history that shaped the music and its central personalities.
New York Times - Brent Staples
Against the odds, Szwed carves out a central image of Sun Ra as a man whose sincerity was unquestioned, whose heart was pure. Essential reading for the millennium.
Village Voice - David Toop
[An] extraordinary biography.
One of the great jazz biographies.
The Guardian - Val Wilmer
"The new forward . . . amounts to a brilliant essay that brings a fresh overview to Ra's story. . . . Space Is the Place is an exhaustive, fascinating and ultimately humanizing account of Sun Ra's life."
All About Jazz - Ian Patterson
[Szwed] succeeds in prying open countless enigmas within enigmas, revealing much that has eluded historians until now.
Observer - Stuart Nicholson
Through collating practically everything written or known about his subject, Szwed doesn't diminish the singularity of Ra’s musical achievement, he enhances it. . . . There's an inspirational quality to Szwed's revelations as he demonstrates Ra's commitment to a course that could only be his own, with rewards that make money and fame seem paltry in comparison.
Austin American-Statesman - Don McLeese
"Alongside Szwed's absorbing musical chronicle, the biographer tackles the more contentious subject of the vast framework of Sun Ra's poetry, theology, and philosophy, and makes a miraculous effort at synthesizing that massive body of often deliberately contradictory statements and beliefs. . . . While he brings academic rigor to his research, however, he writes with an easy flow and peppers the investigation with many memorable anecdotes recalling Sun Ra's idiosyncrasies. Szwed's book is as absorbing an account of Sun Ra's fascinatingly unorthodox life and times as we are ever likely to see.
Scotsman - Kenny Mathieson
The story of the experimental jazz composer, keyboardist and band leader Sun Ra . . . is told with brilliance and grace by the Yale anthropologist John Szwed in this deeply simpatico new biography. . . . The achievement of this biography is that it carefully articulates such views of life and art at the same time that it provides hard data and analysis to locate Sun Ra's theories in historical context.
Washington Post - Robert G. O’Meally
Szwed has unearthed a treasure trove of Ra data . . . [and ] through extensive personal interviews and archival materials, Szwed fills in the murky blanks of Ra's early years. . . . Szwed's portrait of Ra is both scholarly and affectionate. While many fans would often put brackets around aspects of Ra's persona, perhaps turning a blind eye to his convoluted philosophies or his space gypsy stage shows, Szwed embraces them, contradictions and all.
Billboard - John Diliberto
The story of the experimental jazz composer, keyboardist and band leader Sun Ra . . . is told with brilliance and grace by the Yale anthropologist John Szwed in this deeply simpatico new biography. . . . The achievement of this biography is that it carefully articulates such views of life and art at the same time that it provides hard data and analysis to locate Sun Ra's theories in historical context.
Washington Post - Robert G. O’Meally
The Independent - Nick Coleman
As trippy and entertaining as the great jazz genius himself.
[Sun Ra is] the missing link between Duke Ellington and Public Enemy.
Writing the life story of a man who readily admitted almost
nothing about his early years except that he
was born on Saturn isn't a job for your
everyday, run-of-the-mill academic. John F.
Szwed, a professor of anthropology,
Afro-American studies, music and American
studies at Yale University, is the right guy for
the job. Space Is the Place , his biography of
Sun Ra, the legendary, visionary,
whacked-out big-band leader who died in
1993 at the age of 79, is a meticulously
detailed piece of scholarship, but not a leaden
one.
Tracing the life story of the man who was
born Herman Poole Blount in Birmingham,
Ala. -- who, as a child, quickly ran through
every book in his school library, and who
later, as a young man, would walk the streets
of Birmingham dressed in a bed sheet and
sandals "like a prophet from the scriptures" --
Szwed makes it clear that Sun Ra's
eccentricity was part and parcel of his
brilliance. He painstakingly traces the roots of
Sun Ra's philosophy (a heady nectar distilled
from black nationalism, Egyptian-inspired
mysticism, interplanetary travel and the idea
that the secrets of universal harmony can be
revealed through music), placing it squarely in
the context of American social history by way
of Jupiter.
Szwed recognizes Sun Ra as a brilliant
arranger and band leader who drew inspiration
from a massive galaxy of sources: the tradition
of Fletcher Henderson's big band, the cocktail
music of Les Baxter, songs from Walt Disney
movies, even disco. And while he buys into
Sun Ra's schtick with just the right amount of
humor, he also sees the eccentric genius
behind that schtick. Sun Ra knew that the vast
mysteries of jazz could never be explained
away by theory alone: "You know how many
notes there are between C and D?" he'd tell
his musicians. "If you deal with those tones
you can play nature, and nature doesn't know
notes. That's why religions have bells, which
sound all the transient tones. You're not
musicians, you're tone scientists."
Sometimes Szwed's narrative swing gets
bogged down -- he outlines some of Sun Ra's
rambling theories in excruciating detail. And
although he has plenty of passion for his
subject, he doesn't have a loopy enough
vocabulary to capture the exuberance, or even
the sheer musical inventiveness, of Sun Ra
and his Intergalactic Arkestra's live
performances. Still, he believes
wholeheartedly in their magic. He delights in
describing their stage costumes (Sun Ra
himself favored outrageous headgear,
including a hat topped with a blue light). He
understands that the vision of a group of
grown men -- many of them older men, if you
saw them in the '80s or thereafter, as I did,
repeatedly -- with jewel-toned chiffon tunics
layered over regular shirts and pants, wearing
what looked like sequined tube tops on their
heads, was simultaneously a display of pride,
pageantry and utter lunacy. And their sound
was magnificent and free -- no wonder Sun
Ra would look on benevolently from behind
the piano, as if he were sunbathing in the
cosmos.
Toward the end of any given performance,
when the group would drop their instruments
to sing -- always slightly out of tune, and yet
with a resonating, obvious pleasure -- it was
impossible to keep from slipping right into the
logic of their crazy plan for intergalactic,
interracial harmony. Even if you were the
type who hated audience participation with all
your heart, you found yourself joining in on,
say, "Let's Go Fly a Kite." To refuse would
have been proof of nothing, except that you
were made out of wood. -- Salon
