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

"Lock is upping the ante on the scholarship of music. He gently leads the reader into largely unknown territory with impressive lucidity and evenhandedness."-John Szwed, author of Space Is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra "Graham Lock's rightly-named book expertly and impeccably attends to the mission African-American music has been on. Its address of a utopic assertion shaded by blue, dystopic truth in the work of Sun Ra, Ellington, and Braxton knowingly shows how distinctly out music `in the tradition' has long been. Entering the discourse advanced by such assertion with exemplary grace and discernment, ever the right tone and touch, it succeeds beautifully in recognizing and furthering the music's blutopic studies."-Nathaniel Mackey, University of California, Santa Cruz "Graham Lock's Blutopia will stand as a pivotal text in the development of a serious consideration of African American creative music. Lock offers a range of fresh, new materials, and is at the same time approaching the problematic of the black musical intellectual tradition from an extremely exciting and original perspective."- John Corbett, author of Extended Play: Sounding Off from John Cage to Dr. Funkenstein