The Execution of Sun Ra: The Mysterious Tale of a Dark Body Sent to Earth to Usher in an Unprecedented Era of Cosmic Regeneration and Happiness (Volume II)

Stanley, Thomas

ISBN 10: 1600479979 / ISBN 13: 9781600479977

Published by Wasteland Press, 2014

About this Item

"One thing I learned from Sun Ra is that you take him lightly at your own peril. He spoke of serious things, and needs to be taken seriously. The time is right for a new book on Ra, and Thomas Stanley?s is the right book. You can never be certain with Sun Ra, but I?m betting he?d have loved it."-John Szwed, author of Space is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra"Sun Ra has an intrinsic instinct of music as language?there is a sense of language being transmitted as code ? and this also translates from a trans-African type of construct to something that could be construed as signals being sent in outer space?he turns everything upside down in a gnostic type of way, and his synthesis is one of the few and unique blends of jazz and mysticism."

-Matthew Shipp, pianist, composer, bandleader.

Thomas Stanley is a writer, audio activist and scholar. He received his doctorate for research documenting the unique compositional strategies of Butch Morris. He is coauthor of George Clinton and P-Funk: An Oral History. He has taught radical black music, sound art and critical theory at the University of Maryland and George Mason University.

Seller Inventory # ABE-1787945139782

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Execution of Sun Ra: The Mysterious Tale of a Dark Body Sent to Earth to Usher in an Unprecedented Era of Cosmic Regeneration and Happiness (Volume II)
• Publisher: Wasteland Press
• Publication Date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1600479979
• ISBN 13: 9781600479977
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: As New
• Dimensions: 15.24W x 22.86H x 1.68D centimeters 15.24 centimeters width by 22.86 centimeters height by 1.68 centimeters depth
• Weight: 390 grams

About this title

Synopsis

"One thing I learned from Sun Ra is that you take him lightly at your own peril. He spoke of serious things, and needs to be taken seriously. The time is right for a new book on Ra, and Thomas Stanley’s is the right book. You can never be certain with Sun Ra, but I’m betting he’d have loved it."-John Szwed, author of Space is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra"Sun Ra has an intrinsic instinct of music as language…there is a sense of language being transmitted as code – and this also translates from a trans-African type of construct to something that could be construed as signals being sent in outer space…he turns everything upside down in a gnostic type of way, and his synthesis is one of the few and unique blends of jazz and mysticism." Matthew Shipp, pianist, composer, bandleader. Thomas Stanley is a writer, audio activist and scholar. He received his doctorate for research documenting the unique compositional strategies of Butch Morris. He is coauthor of George Clinton and P-Funk: An Oral History. He has taught radical black music, sound art and critical theory at the University of Maryland and George Mason University.

About the Author

Dr. Thomas Stanley believes he is changing the world two ears at a time. Most of us will appreciate the capacity of music to serve as an emotional reservoir of past experience, a sonic trigger for a million shades of nostalgic reflection, but Stanley is in hot pursuit of a forward-facing musical functionality in the most obtuse quarters of audio culture.As artist and teacher, his work erupts like molten magma at the churning intersection between sound art and experimental music. As thinker, his unique synthesis draws upon the tradition of "serious" philosophy (Bergson, Deleuze, Spinoza, Žižek) but is also heavily indebted to "more accessible" thinkers (Sun Ra, Terrence McKenna, Fools Crow, Jesus Christ). Stanley's Anti-Predator-Drone interventions are rich with broad musical references, blackadelic hand jive, and a genuine love for human beings and their evolving condition away from war and waste and towards some kind of collective renewal.

       His doctoral research explored the unique compositional strategy of Lawrence "Butch" Morris. Stanley is an assistant professor in George Mason University's School of Art where he has taught hip hop, sound art, critical theory, writing, and/or consciousness studies since 2004. He is also a founding member of the volunteer curatorial collective Transparent Productions, co-author of an oral history of George Clinton and P-Funk, and a weekly music programmer on fm-radio station WPFW.