Blutopia: Visions of the Future and Revisions of the Past in the Work of Sun Ra, Duke Ellington, and Anthony Braxton [Paperback]

Graham Lock (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 23, 1999

In Blutopia Graham Lock studies the music and thought of three pioneering twentieth-century musicians: Sun Ra, Duke Ellington, and Anthony Braxton. Providing an alternative to previous analyses of their work, Lock shows how these distinctive artists were each influenced by a common musical and spiritual heritage and participated in self-conscious efforts to create a utopian vision of the future.
A century after Ellington’s birth, Lock reassesses his use of music as a form of black history and compares the different approaches of Ra, a band leader who focused on the future and cosmology, and Braxton, a contemporary composer whose work creates its own elaborate mythology. Arguing that the majority of writing on black music and musicians has—even if inadvertently—incorporated racial stereotypes, he explains how each artist reacted to criticism and sought to break free of categorical confines. Drawing on social history, musicology, biography, cultural theory, and, most of all, statements by the musicians themselves, Lock writes of their influential work.
Blutopia will be a welcome contribution to the literature on twentieth-century African American music and creativity. It will interest students of jazz, American music, African American studies, American culture, and cultural studies.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

More than simply an overview of three remarkable musicians' lives, this stellar example of distinctive scholarship (together with Lock's previous works, Forces in Motion and Chasing the Vibration) provides an invaluable commentary on American society. Lock relies on African American cultural practices and mythologies to support his underlying themes, which include the purpose behind each musician's works, how they dealt with misconceptions and misunderstandings (particularly regarding jazz criticism and attempts to gain respect for the music), and the democratic nature of jazz, with an emphasis on its black roots and methods of disowning previous racial stereotyping of the music. In recent years, jazz artists such as Sun Ra and Braxton, who were once marginalized by market forces and critics alike, have become topics of exceptional scholarship, and authors simultaneously strive to correct past writing about jazz artists, including such eminences as Ellington. These promising developments saturate Lock's latest work. Recommended for music libraries and public and academic libraries supporting music collections.
-William Kenz, Moorhead State Univ. Lib., MN
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

It seems odd to lump together the greatest jazz showman, Sun Ra; the greatest jazz orchestrator, Duke Ellington; and the greatest contemporary jazz experimentalist, Anthony Braxton. But Lock illuminatingly argues that the three men's cultural motivations are similar. As African Americans conscious of their people's history and status, they fought racism and the lingering ill effects of being a people forcibly torn from its origins. To assert the cultural eminence and the happy destiny of black people, Sun Ra grounded his music and its presentation in a mythos compounded of ancient Egyptian and science-fictional elements. Ellington proselytized jazz as an art and in his many programmatic suites, beginning with Black, Brown, and Beige, sought to musically portray the complex truth of black lives. Less hindered by overt racism, Braxton placed his compositions within an overarching dramatic structure that Lock sees as an allegory of Braxton's confrontation with attempts to delimit his music and his people. Explicating music-as-sociology rather than music per se, Lock is utterly enthralling, even in the notes. Ray Olson --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Duke University Press Books; Uncorrected proof. edition (December 23, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0822324407
• ISBN-13: 978-0822324409
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #841,670 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Groundbreaking Study that Any Fan of Jazz Must Read, August 17, 2000

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This review is from: Blutopia: Visions of the Future and Revisions of the Past in the Work of Sun Ra, Duke Ellington, and Anthony Braxton (Paperback)

Graham Lock's "Blutopia" stands as one of the great explorations into three of the most enigmatic performers in the history of creative music: Sun Ra, Duke Ellington, and Anthony Braxton. When I first heard that this book going to be published, I worried that Lock's approach might not be able to draw a strong connection between these amazing performers, or that it might be too journalistic and not critical enough, like some of his previous work. After reading just a few pages, it became obvious that this is a first-rate work of scholarship that should be required reading for anyone who is interested in creative music. This will undoubtedly stand among the classic texts written about creative music, along with the brilliant studies by Valerie Wilmer, John Szwed, and Mike Heffley.

Lock examines the common musical heritage of his subjects, showing how their visionary thoughts become manifest in their music, often amidst the crippling misconceptions perpetuated by the press. He delves deeply into the actual interviews and writings of Ra, Ellington, and Braxton, establishing connections between their work and a larger spectrum of academic, religious, and political thought. Particularly interesting is the section on Anthony Braxton, which is a welcome addition to the author's previous work "Forces in Motion." Lock examines Braxton's operas, including even those that have not yet been made available to the public. His discussion of Braxton's use of "text" is an illuminating contribution, and one that is much needed in contemporary scholarship on Braxton.

In short, Lock shows how the art and thought of Braxton, Ellington, and Ra provide those who experience their work with not only the opportunity to view the world with an alternative paradigm, but how in many ways we, as collective humanity, should forget about "history" (which has failed) and start believing in "mystery." The mystery is real--and it is true--and I can think of no better preface to read before embarking on Sun Ra's trips to space--or Braxton's forays into affinity dynamics and meta-reality--than Lock's "Blutopia." It is a masterpiece.

10 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Sorry, but it's just ..., June 25, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Blutopia: Visions of the Future and Revisions of the Past in the Work of Sun Ra, Duke Ellington, and Anthony Braxton (Paperback)

This reads like poorly researched graduate-school blathering (which I expect it is).

Mr Lock appears to have approached his sources with his thesis already formed and to have avoided all contact with anything that might force him to reconsider. Check out his footnote admitting that his use of Ellington's song title is totally inappropriate to what he's trying to make it mean, yet he decided to use it anyway!

His comparison of Sun Ra's mythological musings and autobiographical confessions with slave narratives is ridiculous in that it reveals a thorough lack of knowledge of comparative religion. The author acts as though the experience of death and rebirth or of choosing a new name to reflect a new station in life were phenomena unique to (and invented by) African-Americans. He clearly didn't research this topic thoroughly.

This is a really shoddy work and not worth your time, much less your money.