Jazz Articles about Marshall Allen

About Marshall Allen

Radio & Podcasts

Sound of Germantown: Byard Lancaster, Monnette Sudler, Marshall Allen

by David Brown
January 14, 2025

This week, let's keep it in the neighborhood with a program featuring artists who have current or historical connections to the Germantown neighborhood, home of G-Town Radio in Philadelphia. Recordings featured include bagpiper/saxophonist Rufus Harley, guitarist Monnette Sudler, saxophonist/flutist Byard Lancaster, saxophonist/poet Elliott Levin, alto saxophonist/EVI Marshall Allen, band leader/pianist Sun Ra, vibraphonist Khan Jamal, song/guitar duo Bethlehem and Sad Patrick and poet Trapeta B. Mason. Germantown is a culturally rich community that has been home to many artists of ...

Album Review

Sun Ra: Lights on a Satellite: Live At The left Bank

Read "Lights on a Satellite: Live At The left Bank" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
December 25, 2024

Sun Ra aficionados seem to possess an insatiable appetite for archival recordings of the ever-evolving ensembles of the pianist, composer and bandleader. Born Helman Poole Blount, in Alabama, in 1914, Ra released possibly as many as 200 albums during his lifetime, including extremely limited pressings with hand-painted covers that he sold in person. You might think such a vast and collectable discography would be treasure-trove enough for even the most committed of Ra crate diggers, but no. Which brings us ...

Radio & Podcasts

Marshall Allen, Leiba Trio & Gold Mother

by Maurice Hogue
December 23, 2024

Lights On A Satellite is a fitting title for an album celebrating the 100-year-old miracle, saxophonist Marshall Allen, the mainstay of Sun Ra's legacy. His continuing direction of the Sun Ra Arkestra puts him right up there beside Planet Ra. Other new releases sampled in this episode come from a very worthy Leiba Trio from Argentina led by pianist Santiago Leibson, Portugal's Gold Mother , Free jazz saxophonist Sakina Abdou from France, the duet of long-time musical associates bassoonist Karen ...

Album Review

Sun Ra Arkestra: Lights on a Satellite

Read "Lights on a Satellite" reviewed by Joshua Weiner

by Joshua Weiner
November 26, 2024

As befits a being whose life encompassed much of the Solar System, from his origins on Saturn to his long earthly sojourn that ended in 1993, Sun Ra composed, played and recorded an astronomical panoply of musical styles across six decades. Lights On A Satellite, a new double album released by Germany's In+Out Records, presents a varied program that serves as a dual tribute to both Ra and Marshall Allen, the recent centenarian who has directed the Sun Ra Arkestra ...

Album Review

Sun Ra: Lights on a Satellite: Live At The left Bank

Read "Lights on a Satellite: Live At The left Bank" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
November 17, 2024

Sun Ra's 1978 performance at Baltimore's Left Bank Jazz Society ballroom had something for everyone. The great man and his Arkestra, along with singer June Tyson and dancers, performed jazz from its inception to what Ra predicted (correctly) as its future. This recording is the second unissued discovery from Zev Feldman, the “Jazz Detective," and it follows the sprawling At The Showcase: Live In Chicago 1976-1977 (Elemental Music, 2024). These years, the late 1970s, were an interesting time for Ra. ...

Album Review

Sun Ra: At the Showcase (Live In Chicago, 1976-1977)

Read "At the Showcase (Live In Chicago, 1976-1977)" reviewed by Giuseppe Segala

by Giuseppe Segala
September 9, 2024

Moltissime sono le registrazioni di Sun Ra, alcune memorabili. In ognuna si nasconde una tessera, un elemento della sua vitalità inesauribile, della sua ricerca cosmica di torcere, frammentare, lacerare le convenzioni. Di toccare con mano meravigliata i materiali di cui dispone, quasi venissero da altri mondi, da altre dimensioni, da logiche differenti. Sun Ra trascende le convenzioni. Nel corso degli anni, il musicista ha ricevuto costanti attenzioni da parte del pubblico e delle etichette discografiche. Un pubblico che ...

Radio & Podcasts

Fats Waller 120 - Marshall Allen 100

by David Brown
May 28, 2024

In this episode, we celebrate two artists. In the first set, pianist and songwriter Fats Waller who was born 120 years ago this week. In the second set, we celebrate Philadelphia's ambassador to the cosmos, Marshall Allen leader of the Sun Ra Arkestra, who turned 100 on May 25. These two men's lives span the entire jazz continuum. Waller, who was born in 1904 was writing hit songs when Allen was born in 1924. Their lives overlapped by 19 years. ...