Afrofuturism and Jazz: Chicago's Role in Shaping Avant Garde Jazz

 Sun Ra's Chicago: Afrofuturism and the City by William Sites

Sun Ra and his Arkestra in Chicago, Wonder Inn, 1960 by Ted Swedenburg CC BY 2.0

Sun Ra @ Acropolis by LK CC BY-NC 2.0

I ended up reading William Sites's Sun Ra's Chicago: Afrofuturism and the City right before and during a trip to Chicago. I thought, what better way to learn about the city than to read about the time that avant garde jazz musician Sun Ra spent in Chicago. This was a fascinating read with a great mixture of history and social analysis. Sites examines the role that Chicago played in helping to facilitate some of Sun Ra’s future work and interest in solar myths and space. I found it interesting that as one of the major cities of Black migration in the mid 20^th century, Chicago provided Sun Ra with a broad range of new influences and participants to explore ideas of Black empowerment that were not just different but also artistically focused. In particular, it seemed like there were opportunities in Chicago that were absent from his original home in Alabama, and it seems like Sun Ra met some friends and collaborators who facilitated and birthed his unique views of space life and afro-futurism. I thought that Sites’s analysis of the poetry and artwork involved in Sun Ra’s collective was one of the strengths of this book, and provided more insight into some of his more well-known future works.