SUN RA / ALLEN, MARSHALL - IN THE ORBIT OF RA

Sun Ra (1914 – 1993) was an innovative jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesiser player, who came to be known as much for his Cosmic Afro-futurist Philosophy as for his phenomenal musical compositions and performances. He claimed that he was of the "Angel Race", not from Earth but from Saturn. Some of his most notable influences were African and African-American theatre, theosophy, and masonic Afro-futurism. His interest in these art forms and principles led to the development of a complicated but consistent set of cosmic philosophies and lyrical poetry, which preached spiritual awareness and peace. Born on 22nd May 1914 as Herman Poole Blount, in Birmingham, Alabama, he was nicknamed "Sonny" from his youth. Later, after his release from a detention camp for protesting against World War II, he took on the name and persona of Sun Ra (after the ancient Egyptian sun god). Sun Ra could play many modern and classical works from memory and had worked in country and western bands before moving to Chicago. His personal music collection contained over 10,000 discs, and he was constantly reviewing and studying. Many of his improvisational and compositional innovations were extensions of ideas from twentieth-century European composers. He is responsible for having brought these ideas into jazz decades before many commercial artists popularised the same methods. From 1955 until his death on 30th May 1993, Sun Ra led a big-band ensemble with a constant core of John Gilmore (the only sax player John Coltrane thought "worth listening to") and Marshall Allen (master of alto saxophone pyrotechnics), wrapped by an ever-changing lineup of sidemen who are big names in modern jazz today. The Arkestra, so named as to be an "ark between two worlds", never repeated a performance and rarely repeated an arrangement. Additionally, they appeared under a variety of names, including "The Solar Myth Arkestra", and the "Blue Universe Arkestra". There is some disagreement as to Sun Ra's date of birth. He stated that he had "arrived on Earth" on a number of dates. He was fond of showing his doubters his United States passport, which clearly gave the place of birth as the planet Saturn. 22nd May 1914 appeared on his passport, but other sources place his birth anywhere from 1910 to 1918; most sources support a birth year of 1914 or 1915. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.

A longtime member of The Sun Ra Arkestra, alto saxophonist Marshall Allen later assumed leadership of the group following the departures of Sun Ra and his immediate successor, John Gilmore. He was also a regular collaborator of Babatunde Olatunji, in the process emerging as one of the first jazz musicians to fuse the avant-garde with traditional African music. Allen was born May 25, 1924, in Louisville, KY, beginning clarinet lessons at the age of ten. After enlisting with the U.S. Army's renowned Buffalo Soldiers in 1942, he played clarinet and alto saxophone with the 17th Division Special Service Band, subsequently forming a trio with pianist Art Simmons and guitarist Don Byas while stationed in Paris. After spending the late '40s touring and recording behind James Moody, Allen studied at the Paris Conservatory of Music before returning stateside in 1951, settling in Chicago and forming his own dance band. He also began writing his first original compositions. Circa 1956, Allen met Sun Ra, joining the pianist's legendary Arkestra two years later. He would go on to lead its reed section for more than four decades, over time earning renown as one of the most distinctive and original saxophonists of the postwar era. In tandem with tenorist John Gilmore and baritone saxophonist Pat Patrick, Allen played on more than 200 Sun Ra recordings. He also developed his own reed instrument (dubbed the "morrow") by attaching a saxophone mouthpiece to an open-hole wooden body but failed to patent his creation, which is now commercially available under different names. Whenever the Arkestra went on hiatus, Allen moonlighted with Babatunde Olatunji and his Drums of Passion, even learning to build and play the West African multi-stringed instrument the kora; he also guested on live dates and recordings headlined by a multitude of next-generation musicians, including jam band Phish, avant rock combo Sonic Youth, and hip-hop upstarts Digable Planets. When Sun Ra left the planet in 1993, the Arkestra's reins were handed to John Gilmore, who himself passed on two years later; at that point Allen assumed control, leading the 18-piece ensemble well into the next millennium. In addition to giving master classes, lectures, and demonstrations of Sun Ra's enduring creative principles, Allen also founded the El Ra label, home to such latter-day Arkestra recordings as A Song for the Sun and Music for the 21st Century http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=15024 http://www.elrarecords.com/ Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.