Table of Contents

* Acknowledgments * Prelude to Infinity * Intro: Wonder Inn *1. Alien *2. Marienville *3. Bronzeville *4. Thmei *5. Egypt *6. Washington Park *7. Arkestra *8. Immeasurable Equation *9. El Saturn *10. Isotope Teleportation *11. Cry of Jazz *12. Sputnik *13. Rocketry *14. Tomorrowland *15. Interplanetary Exotica *16. Space Music *17. Myth Science *18. Black Man in the Cosmos *19. Space Is the Place *20. Tokens of Infinity *21. Continuation * Outro: Extensions Out * Notes * Bibliography * Discography * Credits and Permissions * Index

Promotional Information

"I am bowled over. Youngquist explains-better than anyone before and, in many particular regards, for the first time-how Sun Ra's poetically logical illogic and musically purposeful nothingness offered, and offers, a pathway for escaping the often-degrading experience of being African American in America. Youngquist dances seamlessly between hip insider talk and scholarly observation, between fiction and history, between celebration and criticism. This book is terrific, sensational. What a delight." -- Barry Kernfeld, editor of The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz and author of What to Listen for in Jazz "A Pure Solar World is a major accomplishment. Working through the tangle of incomplete and misleading information surrounding Sun Ra and Saturn Records, Paul Youngquist provides the most thoroughly researched work on Sun Ra to be published in recent years. To anyone with a serious interest in comprehending the Ra universe, this volume will be an invaluable guide." -- Aldon Lynn Nielsen, Pennsylvania State University, author of Integral Music: Languages of African-American Innovation

About the Author

Paul Youngquist teaches English at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is the author or editor of six books, including Cyberfiction: After the Future, Monstrosities: Bodies and British Romanticism, and Race, Romanticism, and the Atlantic. He now devotes much of his energy to studying the histories, written and oral, of resistance and creativity in the Caribbean.

Reviews

"Youngquist has published an excellent critical take on Sun Ra's creation myth and its relation to broader currents of America's postwar social imaginary. " PopMatters "[Youngquist] writes with spirited engagement: like much of the best writing on Sun Ra, he is an unapologetic convert, and there is a winning evangelism to his analysis... his writing is fired by the sense that Sun Ra's musical metaphysic truly matters in the here and now." The Wire "The title is well chosen. Sun Ra's legacy is as much the vision of another world, and another way of being, as it is a unique approach to music... [His] relationship with pop culture is equally fascinating and the impact he made on a wide range of artists who achieved far greater mainstream commercial success ... is significant to say the least. Youngquist's prose is vivid and concise, making a subject some might still find forbidding anything but. A welcome invitation to the spaceways." Jazzwise