You’re never too old to do something new – and Marshall Allen proves this
in an exemplary way. He’s been a member of the Sun Ra Arkestra since 1958
and when Ra left the planet in 1993 he has been its artistic director since
1995 (after a short intermezzo by the saxophonist John Gilmore). At the age
of 100, he has now recorded his first solo album. New Dawn was recorded in
Philadelphia in May 2024 and is a joint project with Knoel Scott, the
baritone saxophonist and deputy leader of the Arkestra. Scott and Allen
combed through an archive of unreleased material and carefully selected
compositions that showcase Allen’s musical range.
Marshall Allen was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1924. He started
playing the clarinet at the age of ten, came to France as a US soldier,
earned his living as a musician from the 1940s onwards, stayed in Paris
until 1951, then went back to the United States – where he came across Sun
Ra. Since then, he has lived, breathed, thought and felt the Arkestra. And
of course his solo debut cannot deny this.
The first single on his debut album is called ‘New Dawn’ and features lyrics
by Scott, with Allen playing alto saxophone and Neneh Cherry, Don Cherry’s
stepdaughter and known from Rip, Rig and Panic, The Thing and as a solo
artist (remember “Buffalo Stance”) on vocals. Knoel Scott assembled a team
of current Philadelphia Arkestra members and Arkestra veterans for the
album, including Michael Ray and Cecil Brooks (trumpets), Jamaaladeen
Tacuma (bass), Bruce Edwards (guitar) and George Gray (drums).
The music presents a potpourri of the Sun Ra universe: new versions of
Arkestra classics like “Angels and Demons at Play”, West African influences
like in “African Sunset”, modern swing stompers like “Are You Ready” or the
elegant and mysterious title track, in which Neneh Cherry sings as if she
were a blues singer from days gone by. In general, the whole album sounds
like a soundtrack to a tasteful film adaptation of “Tales from the
Thousand and One Nights“ or like a jazz story of the second half of the
20th century – and Allen plays his still amazingly powerful-sounding
saxophone over everything.
The idea for this album also came from Jan Lankisch, who has been
responsible for the very prestigious Cologne Weekend Festival for years. The
festival is famous for the presentation of organizing legendary bands – such
as the Arkestra. The man knows Allen well. It was a good decision on
everyone’s part to give the musicians a lot of freedom in the studio. The
result is truly captivating, uplifting, enveloping, from the first to the
last bar. Long may Allen live!
New Dawn is available on vinyl (even a limited version), as a CD and as a
download.
You can listen to the album and order it here: