Change is Where You Make It: Constructs in Astrophysics and Metaphysics in the Music of the Civil Rights Era Explored through the ‘Utopian Idealology’ of Jazz Artists Sun Ra, John Coltrane and Anthony Braxton Researched, Prepared and Written by Brian Casey, DMA Jazz Studies (Candidate) During the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s and 1970s, many jazz artists, especially those associated with the avant-garde, were linked to the black nationalist movement promoted by the Black Panther Party and were assumed to be a part of the Black Arts Movement. Consequently, many cultural observers created an image in which all ‘free jazz’ or avant-garde music from the jazz idiom was a contemporary manifestation of black nationalism and separatism. For some artists such as Archie Shepp, Bill Dixon and poet Amiri Baraka, this was an accurate connection…. But, there were other artists who had different ideas of how they might affect social change by building a better world through a musical representation of science, spirituality and the potential of being able to create positive changes in society reflective of a utopian world free of racial intolerance and insensitivity. These artists worked to distance themselves from the Black Arts Movement. Three prominent artists who presented alternative approaches in this manner are Sun Ra, John Coltrane and Anthony Braxton: Sun Ra ( ) John Coltrane ( ) Anthony Braxton b Braxton's music and writing in the 1960s and 1970s are not overtly concerned with manifestations of an astrophysical nature, but he does reference extraterrestrial influences, characters and potential audiences throughout his career. In Braxton’s work, scientific approaches were part of his conceptual continuity. Beginning in the mid-1960s, Anthony Braxton, a chief exemplar of the avant-garde and the ‘New Thing’ in jazz, developed his own sense of tradition within jazz based in part on his own concepts of utopianism. The relationship between jazz music and the social upheaval in American culture in the 1960s and into the 1970s is a broad, complex and often controversial subject. There are many angles, approaches and theories at play addressing how society and jazz as an art form may have influenced each other. What is rarely in debate is that there is a connection between free jazz and the racial turmoil in America. The three musicians I’ve profiled above held strong views about the role of Americans of African descent in society during the Civil Rights Era, but they are only three among many others that chose to present an inclusive solution to the problem black Americans faced. They presented these solutions through spiritual awareness and an exploration of an inner space, or by using the metaphor of outer space in order to increase an awareness of the importance of science and technology, to ensure that African American culture had the spiritual strength and technological savvy to minimalize the marginalization African American culture had been facing. A principle voice in the avant-garde jazz scene of the early 1960s, Sun Ra utilizes a decidedly utopian concept he created and maintained throughout his career as a unifying theme within all his work. This concept is embodied in a construct characterized by Graham Lock as Ra’s “Astro-Black Mythology” This genesis of this concept is concisely contained in Ra's own words, as quoted by John Corbett: “We are told we have no history. Why can't we create our own future?” Sun Ra can be considered a pioneer of afro- futurism. He was promoting these ideas as early as the mid-1950s in conjunction with creating a ‘black knowledge society’ metaphor, also using historic Egypt as a symbol of an African technological civilization. By 1966, the New Thing in jazz, or avant-garde or whatever the writer or listener cared to call it, was becoming inextricably linked to the black nationalism and anti-establishment rhetoric. John Coltrane, because of his significant influence on the jazz record business and on musicians within the New Thing, was similarly connected to those political concerns, even though he was decidedly not concerned with effecting social change through politics or any other means other than by trying to make the most beautiful, engaging and spirit-lifting music he could. The irony is that as pacifistic and apolitical as Coltrane decidedly was, he was adopted by the black nationalist and separatist revolution and those writing about it as an iconic figure in their movements. Braxton describes his music as being more traditional in relation to 'free jazz', which he sees as heading toward anarchism, requiring a newly developed ‘meta-reality’ within the tradition. Part of Braxton’s ‘meta- reality’ involves synaesthesia, utilizing diagrams which combine a scientific perspective with a futuristic tendency as titles for his compositions representative of the music: Conclusion: