Vision Festival 29 (Marshall Allen/Sun Ra)

[romualdo]

Extract from Bruce Gallanter's DMG newsletter, describing the Sun Ra performance & amazingly Marshall Allen still conducting & playing at 100!!

The final set on the last night of Vision Fest 2024 was appropriately Marshall Allen & the Sun Ra Arkestra. It seems hard to believe but it is true, Marshall Allen turned 100 last month in May or 2024. Not many humans have been around for an entire century, especially someone special like Marshall Allen who still plays alto sax unlike anyone else on this planet as well as an EVI (electronic valve instrument), leads the Arkestra which has been going on for nearly 70 years. This is an Arkestra which plays music drawn from the history of jazz as well as space (rock) music from another world! I’ve heard the Sun Arkestra play live maybe 50 times since my first encounter at the Five Spot in 1973 and they’ve continued to take their audiences with them on a journey to Other Worlds. The current band has around 17 members with a number of older members like Michael Ray, Vincent Chancey and Knoel Scott. The band still plays a number of Sun Ra originals, a number of which I’ve heard many times in the past yet each one still sounds relevant today. Like many older big bands from the mid last century, this band loves to play those repeating riffs which are most hypnotic. Many of these riffs/melodies sound familiar whether I can place them or not. Original Sun Ra saxists, John Gilmore & Marshall Allen, are known for being the first to play those out/jazz, multiphonic, squeaks, squawks and blast sax sounds in the mid-to-late 1950’s, which influenced the likes of John Coltrane, which helps to lead to beginning of “Free Jazz” and freeing the tradition to experiment with sounds of the future. Check out Mr. Allen as he still curves his hand to get those sax sounds which few others can play in the same way. One of those riffs that the Arkestra plays is closer to a Space/Rock jam that we might’ve heard from the Planet Gong (band). Most of the members of the band got a chance to solo and each one shined like a diamond in the rough. They did one Latin sounding song which reminded me of a cha cha yet it still felt right as a part of this set. One of the old Sun Ra songs that they played is called “Angels and Demons at Play” and it still sounds cosmic so many years later. Besides looking like an ancient Goddess/Space/Princess, Tara Middleton was featured and sang one song with stellar dust surrounding it. One of the last pieces I heard before I had to split to catch the last train was a heartfelt Chicago blues song, with soulful sax solos and a Sun Ra-like synth solo from a fine unnamed keyboardist. I was so glad to be “Traveling the Spaceways” with the current Sun Ra Arkestra, more than 50 years after I first heard them live in 1973. This was the perfect way to close Vision Fest 29!