Musicians of the Sun

Musicians of the Sun
Author: Gerald McDermott
Publisher: Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2000-12
Genre: Aztec mythology
ISBN: 9780689839078

In this retelling of an Aztec myth, Lord of the Night sends Wind to free the four musicians that the Sun is holding prisoner so they can bring joy to the world.

Space Is the Place

Space Is the Place
Author: John Szwed
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2020-04-30
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1478012056

Considered by many to be a founder of Afrofuturism, Sun Ra—aka Herman Blount—was a composer, keyboardist, bandleader, philosopher, entrepreneur, poet, and self-proclaimed extraterrestrial from Saturn. He recorded over 200 albums with his Arkestra, which, dressed in Egypto-space costumes, played everything from boogie-woogie and swing to fusion and free jazz. John Szwed's Space is the Place is the definitive biography of this musical polymath, who was one of the twentieth century's greatest avant-garde artists and intellectuals. Charting the whole of Sun Ra's life and career, Szwed outlines how after years in Chicago as a blues and swing band pianist, Sun Ra set out in the 1950s to impart his views about the galaxy, black people, and spiritual matters by performing music with the Arkestra that was as vital and innovative as it was mercurial and confounding. Szwed's readers—whether they are just discovering Sun Ra or are among the legion of poets, artists, intellectuals, and musicians who consider him a spiritual godfather—will find that, indeed, space is the place.

Arrow to the Sun

Arrow to the Sun
Author: Gerald McDermott
Publisher: Perfection Learning
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1977-02
Genre: Folk literature, Pueblo
ISBN: 9780812401028

An adaptation of the Pueblo Indian myth that explains how the spirit of the Lord of the Sun was brought to the world of men.

The Million Dollar Quartet

The Million Dollar Quartet
Author: Stephen Miller
Publisher: Omnibus Press
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2013-03-01
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0857128566

Million Dollar Quartet’ is the name given to recordings made on Tuesday December 4, 1956 in the Sun Record Studios in Memphis, Tennessee. The recordings were of an impromptu jam session among Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash.The events of the session. Very few participants survive. Includes interviews with the drummer and the sound engineer. A detailed analysis of the music played – and its relevance to subsequent popular music. The early lives and careers of the quartet – where they were in 1956. Relevant social and economic factors which meant that a massive audience of young people were keenly looking for a new kind of music they could call their own. The “reunions” of surviving members of the quartet. The emergence of the tapes, first on bootleg and then on legitimate CDs. The genesis of the stage show and its reception – the enduring appeal of the music.

Body Mind Mastery

Body Mind Mastery
Author: Dan Millman
Publisher: New World Library
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2010-09-24
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1577312996

Drawing on his extensive experience as a coach and world champion athlete, bestselling author Dan Millman reveals a path to success not only in sports but in any life endeavor that requires training and the integration of the body and mind — from golf and tennis to playing the piano. Body Mind Mastery is a revised and updated edition of Millman’s classic The Inner Athlete and includes a brand new Peaceful Warrior warmup, with photos and instructions on creating a daily exercise routine from Millman’s principles, as well as a new section on the aging athlete. Through personal experience, as well as anecdotes from teaching and coaching at such schools as Stanford, U.C. Berkeley, and Oberlin College, Millman directs the reader through the detailed process of attaining the optimum performance of body and mind, where “our minds are free of concern or anxiety, focused on the present moment; our bodies relaxed, sensitive, elastic, and aligned with gravity; our emotions free-flowing expression, uninhibited, spontaneous.” Body Mind Mastery includes overview chapters on developing mental, emotional, physical talent; practical chapters on training, competition, and the evolution of athletics; and Millman’s exploration of natural laws that govern mental and physical training. It is a seminal book that examines the psychology behind the search for athletic excellence, and shows anyone how to improve skills, accelerate learning, and unleash athletic potential. The skills it teaches are applicable in sports and daily life — transforming training into a path of personal growth and discovery.

Indian Sun

Indian Sun
Author: Oliver Craske
Publisher: Hachette Books
Total Pages: 682
Release: 2020-04-07
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0306874873

One of Library Journal's "Best Arts Books of 2020" The definitive biography of Ravi Shankar, one of the most influential musicians and composers of the twentieth century, told with the cooperation of his estate, family, and friends For over eight decades, Ravi Shankar was India's greatest cultural ambassador. He was a groundbreaking performer and composer of Indian classical music, who brought the music and rich culture of India to the world's leading concert halls and festivals, charting the map for those who followed in his footsteps. Renowned for playing Monterey Pop, Woodstock, and the Concert for Bangladesh-and for teaching George Harrison of The Beatles how to play the sitar-Shankar reshaped the musical landscape of the 1960s across pop, jazz, and classical music, and composed unforgettable scores for movies like Pather Panchali and Gandhi. In Indian Sun: The Life and Music of Ravi Shankar, writer Oliver Craske presents readers with the first full portrait of this legendary figure, revealing the personal and professional story of a musician who influenced-and continues to influence-countless artists. Craske paints a vivid picture of a captivating, restless workaholic-from his lonely and traumatic childhood in Varanasi to his youthful stardom in his brother's dance troupe, from his intensive study of the sitar to his revival of India's national music scene. Shankar's musical influence spread across both genres and generations, and he developed close friendships with John Coltrane, Philip Glass, Yehudi Menuhin, George Harrison, and Benjamin Britten, among many others. For ninety-two years, Shankar lived an endlessly colorful and creative life, a life defined by musical, emotional, and spiritual quests-and his legacy lives on. Benefiting from unprecedented access to Shankar's archives, and drawing on new interviews with over 130 subjects-including his second wife and both of his daughters, Norah Jones and Anoushka Shankar- Indian Sun gives readers unparalleled insight into a man who transformed modern music as we know it today.

How Music Came to the World

How Music Came to the World
Author: Hal Ober
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 32
Release: 1994
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 9780395675236

Retells a Mexican legend in which the sky god and the wind god bring music from Sun's house to the Earth.

Autumn's Sun

Autumn's Sun
Author: Lawrence Kumpf
Publisher: Blank Forms Editions
Total Pages: 82
Release: 2019-09-17
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9781733723527

One of the world's most singular guitarists, Loren Connors has wrung distinct shades of ephemeral blues from his guitar, its sound ever-shifting while remaining unmistakably his own in more than 100 records across almost four decades. In the mid-80s, Connors took a partial break from music and focused instead on the art of haiku, for which he received the Lafcadio Hearn Award in 1987. With his wife Suzanne Langille he also co-wrote an article on blues and haiku, "The Dancing Ear," published in the Haiku Society of America's journal. It was during this period that Connors penned the material that appears in Autumn's Sun, a chapbook first published by Thurston Moore and Byron Coley's Glass Eye in 1999. The text features diary excerpts from 1987, lyrically fragmented observations interspersed with haiku-like poems that paint an idyllic impression of the passing seasons in his home of New Haven, Connecticut. With synesthetic perception, Connors gazes from tranquil domestic streets. Sycamore, elm, and catalpa trees are activated by the breeze and made to rustle in unison with their natural and artificial surroundings, including the howling dogs from which Connors derived his 'Mazzacane' moniker. As summer fades to winter, Connors portrays death as an undramatic certitude, the flux of his own maturation reflected in musings on his son's. Like his music, Autumn's Sun is tender without being sentimental, conjuring those rare, delicate moments when time stands still. This edition includes "The Dancing Ear" and an introduction by Lawrence Kumpf.

Extended Play

Extended Play
Author: John Corbett
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 364
Release: 1994
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9780822314738

In Extended Play, one of the country's most innovative music writers conducts a wide-ranging tour through the outer limits of contemporary music. Over the course of more than twenty-five portraits, interviews, and essays, John Corbett engages artists from lands as distant as Sweden, Siberia, and Saturn. With a special emphasis on African American and European improvisers, the book explores the famous and the little known, from John Cage and George Clinton to Anthony Braxton and Sun Ra. Employing approaches as diverse as the music he celebrates, Corbett illuminates the sound and theory of funk and rap, blues and jazz, contemporary classical, free improvisation, rock, and reggae. Using cultural critique and textual theory, Corbett addresses a broad spectrum of issues, such as the status of recorded music in postmodern culture, the politics of self-censorship, experimentation, and alternativism in the music industry, and the use of metaphors of space and madness in the work of African American musicians. He follows these more theoretically oriented essays with a series of extensive profiles and in-depth interviews that offer contrasting and complementary perspectives on some of the world's most creative musicians and their work. Included here are more than twenty original photographs as well as a meticulously annotated discography. The result is one of the most thoughtful, and most entertaining, investigations of contemporary music available today.

Cult Musicians

Cult Musicians
Author: Robert Dimery
Publisher: White Lion Publishing
Total Pages: 147
Release: 2020-05-26
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0711250626

Cult Musicians handpicks 50 notable figures from the modern world of music and explores the creative genius that earned them the cult label, while celebrating the works that made their names. What makes a cult musician? Whether pioneering in their craft, fiercely and undeniably unique or critically divisive, cult musicians come in all shapes and guises. Some gain instant fame, others instant notoriety, and more still remain anonymous until a chance change in fashion sees their work propelled into the limelight. In Cult Musicians Robert Dimery introduces 50 musicians deserving of a cult status. The book will cover a plethora of genres and boundary-breakers, from afrobeat and art pop to glam rock and proto punk – Bjork and PJ Harvey to Aphex Twin and Wiley. Discover little knowns with small, devout followings and superstars gracing the covers of magazines: each musician is special in their individuality and their ability to inspire, antagonise and delight. Following Cult Artists, Cult Filmmakers and Cult Writers, Cult Musicians is an essential addition to any music lover's library, as well as an entertaining introduction to our weird and wonderful world of music. The Musicians: Alex Chilton, Alice Coltrane, Aphex Twin, Arthur Lee, Arthur Russell, Betty Davis, Bjork, Bobbie Gentry, Brian Eno, Brigitte Fontaine, Captain Beefheart, Delia Derbyshire, Edith Piaf, Fela Kuti, Frank Zappa, Gil Scott-Heron, Iggy Pop, J Dilla, John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Kat Bjelland, Kool Keith, Laurie Anderson, Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Lili Boulanger, Lydia Lunch, Manu Chao, Marianne Faithfull, Mark E. Smith, Mark Hollis, Moondog, Nick Cave, Nick Drake, Nico, Patti Smith, Peaches, PJ Harvey, Robert Wyatt, Roky Erickson, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Sandy Denny, Scott Walker, Serge Gainsbourg, Sixto Rodriguez, Sun Ra, Syd Barrett, The Slits, Tom Waits, Wiley, Yoko Ono.