Saxophonist Marshall Allen has just won a place in the Guinness Book of Records. At 100 years old he is, by some good distance, the oldest person EVER to release a debut album as a leader. That album New Dawn is one long joyful noise and a shining beacon of hope released just as we need it. Marshall has of course released many hundreds of records as, since 1958, a member of Sun Ra’s Arkestra. It’s a band he has led since 1995 and the passing of John Gilmore, following Ra’s evolution to Saturn in 1993. Having turned 100 in May, Ra took the Arkestra in to the studio in June to record a double album and has now topped even that with the release of his own debut album. Rather than review the music here I’ll urge you to listen to One Jazz to hear plenty of music and also to go online and buy what is sure to become a valid collectors album. Worth saying though is does feature a brilliant version of Allen’s Arkestra staple Angels and Demons at Play and the title track is a gorgeous space ballad with Neneh Cherry the perfect voice to compliment Allen’s unique sound.
So instead of a long review I thought I’d re-publish a piece I wrote recently for the Galliano fanzine with my personal appreciation of the great Marshall Allen.
This is our Album Of The Week on One Jazz w/c Monday 17th February 2025.
Brief Encounters With Marshall Allen
The first time I saw Marshall Allen Blue Smoke came out of his saxophone. I remember thinking he played the alto as if he was revving the throttle on a motorbike. The sound he forced and coerced out was like a beautiful scream but the music was there for all to see as well as hear – blue smoke.
It was 1990 at The Mean Fiddler in Harlesden. A strange place to literally see music but there you go and the proof can be heard on the album Live In London.
It was the night after I’d interviewed Sun Ra live on the radio and he’d given me Xeroxed copies of The Book Of Wisdom, made me laugh with his incredible sense of playfulness, drunk Marco’s tea and told me he was an Angel. So I was ready to raised up.
In 2004 when Marshall was a mere slip of an eighty-year old Don Letts and I spent some time at the infamous Ra House in Germantown, Philadelphia to film the BBC Documentary Brother From Another Planet. On the last day I climbed to the top of the tall, thin, Astro Blue-painted house to say goodbye and thanks. Loping, off-kilter big band music blared from inside a bedroom. I peaked around the ajar door. There was Marshall dancing, hands raised and smile wide. He’d just discovered some unheard 1960’s Arkestra tapes and was lost in the marvel of Ra’s masterful arrangements.
Back to London and it’s 1994 and I’m backstage at The Hackney Empire. The Arkestra have just played a two hour set and the band have skipped and jumped off stage-side singing “We Travel The Spaceways”. As they pass the point where the audience can’t spy them they collapse in to chairs, lean on walls and light cigarettes. Ra remains at the keyboard and after hitting a final space-chord gives a fleeting glance to the wings. Marshall jerks and the entire band jump to their feet and return, re-charged to play on.
Marshall was a Buffalo Soldier, the nickname given to African American cavalrymen in the 19th century that persisted to World War 2 and Marshall’s 92nd Infantry Division of the United States Army. He was based in France and studied Saxophone in Paris.
In April 2010 Eyjafjallajökull, an Icelandic volcano erupted and ash filled the skies of Northern Europe. The Sun Ra Arkestra, grounded in London, took this in their stride. They’d spent half a century making the most of being stranded, left high and dry in cities around the world.
What most would consider being trapped they always saw as an opportunity to make more music. So they added extra dates at Cafe Otto and Marshall came in to my show at the BBC to record a blistering set as The Volcanic Quartet. Ask me nicely and I will play it to you.
It’s June 2024 and Marshall Allen, recently turned ONE HUNDRED, leads a 24-piece Arkestra in to Studio A of New York’s Power Station. As they conclude recording Lights On A Satellite – the opening track of their new double album – Marshall Allen’s alto cries a joyful noise as clear as when he first played with Ra 66 years ago. Blue Smoke fills the air again.
Jez Nelson