No other 100-year-old musician is leading a band, and no bandleader has remained in the same band for 67 years. NEA Jazz Master and alto saxophonist/EWI player Marshall Allen joined the Sun Ra Arkestra in 1957 (or 1958, depending on the source) and has been leading the venerable institution since Sun Ra’s passing in 1993 for thirty years and still going. However, he did stop touring in 2021.
This latest work, involving 24 musicians, Lights On A Satellite, is arguably the best album the Arkestra has issued under Allen’s leadership. Part of that is due to a retrospective vibe that captures the way the band was playing in 1957, a robust, swinging big band with a sound rooted in both Sun Ra’s admiration of giants like Fletcher Henderson and early innovators like King Oliver as well as a signature Space Age aesthetic, manifesting in shiny costumes and sung slogans. Although there are two space-age references, the prevailing feel is that of the swinging big band he joined almost seven decades ago. He arranged most of these tunes, and with Henderson included, we hear music from a century of jazz in this session. Sun Ra was so far ahead of his time that his music may reverberate into the next century.
Allen is more than merely a conductor and an arranger, though; you’ll hear his distinctive overblowing on the alto on the opening title track and throughout. No one else plays the alto in this way. You’ll also hear him soloing on EWI. “Lights on a Satellite,” like many here, was a tune the Arkestra was playing 50 or 60 years ago with Allen in the alto chair. One of the non-Sun Ra compositions, “Dorothy’s Dance,” features solos from seven members, showcasing the musicality of this intergenerational group of players. Brent White impresses on trombone, as does longtime member Knoel Scott on baritone sax. Horace Henderson’s “Big John’s Special’ was initially arranged by his brother Fletcher Henderson while playing in his big band. Like Horace Henderson, Sun Ra played piano and wrote arrangements under his real name Herman Poole Blout in Fletcher Henderson’s band. .“Images” is one of several vocal tracks with Tara Middleton scatting in another straight-forward swinger with a swaggering solo from pianist Barron. It first appeared on Sun Ra’s 1973 Jazz in Silhouette.
“Friendly Galaxy” is one of only two overtly Space Age tracks where Marshall’s EWI and Barron’s Moog theremin come into a play along with heavy percussion and a blended harmonic of French horn, tenor, trumpet, flute, and trombone. The other is the bluesy“Tapestry From an Asteroid,” which has been a part of Sun Ra Arkestra’s instrumental repertoire since 1956, here with a striking arrangement punctuated by Scott’s baritone sax, Allen’s one-of-a-kind alto, and Middleton’s stirring vocal.
The pivotal track may well be the world premiere of the Sun Ra composition “Baby Won‘t You Please Be Mine,” one that leans far more toward Billie Holiday than what we associate with Sun Ra. Yet, it does blend the ‘30s sound with a short about of free jazz Middleton, with a little help from Marshall and Scott, delivers the convincing bluesy vocal. The million-selling “Holiday for Strings” (1942 by David Rose and his Orchestra) is still considered a classic of American music. Interestingly, guitarist Carl LeBlanc is the lone soloist in this feature for the six-piece string section and an array of vocalists. “Reflects Motion” is another in the standard Sun Ra repertoire through the years, a free jazz piece with five soloists, while the closer “Way Down Yonder In New Orleans” with LeBlanc on vocals, shows the band’s link to the beginnings of jazz, as they often bring these older tunes into their set.
This is a fresh, meticulously arranged but still casual-sounding big band outing, not to be confused with the forthcoming album of the same name due on Black Friday. Lights On a Satellite, Live at the Left Bank, was recorded in 1977, with only Allen and trumpeter Michael Ray appearing on both.
