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MARSHALL ALLEN

Marshall Allen

New Dawn

    Two days after his 100th birthday, Marshall Allen started recording New Dawn, his debut solo album. A member of Sun Ra’s Arkestra since 1958, Allen assumed leadership of the band in 1995. Throughout his nearly seventy-year career, Allen has never released a solo album under his own name, and yet, instead of capping such a legendary output, New Dawn seems to herald a new beginning. A love letter to spacetime, it channels a century of musical intelligence into seven tracks, showing Allen at his most protean—freely moving from relaxed, transdimensional palettes to bluesy big band and beyond.

    One of music’s vanguard avant-saxophonists, Allen continues to deliver durational feats during the Arkestra’s gigs. Still, the compositional energy contained on New Dawn is striking. Allen was approached with the idea of a solo record by Week-End Records’ Jan Lankisch. The Arkestra’s Knoel Scott — who has lived with Allen at the Arkestral Institute of Sun Ra since the 1980s — worked with Allen to pore over the archive of unrecorded material and develop this debut. Scott assembled some of Philadelphia’s brightest jazz stars as well as some Arkestra veterans for the sessions. New Dawn was then recorded over a couple of days in Philadelphia, with additional recordings to be added in the coming weeks and months. The legendary Neneh Cherry will lend her unmistakable voice to the title track “New Dawn”.

    Though greatly informed by the philosophy of Sun Ra and his Saturnian teachings—traverse jazz’s traditions, dig deep into spiritual geographies — New Dawn signals Allen as his own singular voice, one that’s swinging and bopping and reflecting into the future, with no sign of stopping. Week-End Records is proud to release this debut solo album by Marshall Allen.

    “New Dawn is clearly an extension of Ra’s legacy and sound, but it’s also a masterful endeavour filtered through Allen’s tastes and approach”. – John Morrison, The Wire, November 2024 (cover story)


    TRACK LISTING

    01 Marshall Allen Prologue 00:00:45
    02 Marshall Allen African Sunset 00:07:28
    03 Marshall Allen / Neneh Cherry New Dawn 00:06:34
    04 Marshall Allen Are You Ready 00:05:40
    05 Marshall Allen Sonny's Dance 00:05:31
    06 Marshall Allen Boma 00:10:22
    07 Marshall Allen Angels And Demons At Play 00:04:22

    Sun Ra

    Marshall Allen Presents Sun Ra And His Arkestra:In The Orbit Of Ra - 2023 Repress

      Strut and Art Yard join forces for a special release to mark what would have been Sun Ra’s 100th birthday with ’In The Orbit Of Ra’, a new collection curated by the longest serving member of the Arkestra and current bandleader, Marshall Allen. Bringing together Ra highlights from over 25 years of music, the album is the first internationally released compilation to provide an introduction to the music of Sun Ra, curated personally by the Arkestra and mastered from the original tapes. With a catalogue of well over a hundred albums, Sun Ra forged his own direction in music from the mid ‘50s until his passing in 1993, injecting space age cosmic philosophy, ancient Egyptian history and lyrical poetry into a unique and freeform jazz sound. His music evolved constantly with relentless rehearsals, live gigging and recording schedules, developing a second?sense chemistry with his fellow Arkestra band members. Together, their emphasis would often be on improvisation and “the moment”, constantly re?interpreting and evolving their sound. Elements of magic and ritual would regularly feature in their performances and would lend the Arkestra a mystical aura.

      For this exclusive new collection, Strut join forces with Art Yard to gain access to the inner sanctum of the Arkestra. In addition to the track selection, the release features recollections and contributions from some of the core Arkestra line?up including Marshall Allen, Michael Ray, Knoel Scott and Danny Ray Thompson. For the music, Allen’s selection takes us through the huge variety and intricacy of the Arkestra’s work covering the ‘60s to early ‘80s, from the celestial blues of ‘Spontaneous Simplicity’ and ‘Plutonian Nights’ to the urgent jazz of ‘Rocket Number Nine Take Off For Planet Venus’ and ‘Dance Of The Cosmo Aliens’. The album features an exclusive previously unreleased Sun Ra track from the Art Yard archives, the acoustic ‘Trying To Put The Blame On Me’ recorded live in Rome in 1977, along with a previously unreleased Part 1 of ‘Reflects Motion’ from 1962 and an unheard extended version of ‘Island In The Sun’ from the late ‘60s.

      ‘In The Orbit Of Ra’ is released on 2CD and 2LP. Physical formats feature full interview with Marshall Allen along with rare and previously unpublished photos by Val Wilmer.

      TRACK LISTING

      LP 1
      1. Sun Ra And His Myth Science Arkestra – Somewhere In Space
      2. Sun Ra & His Solar‐Myth Arkestra – The Lady With The Golden Stockings
      3. Sun Ra And His Afro Infinity Arkestra – Somebody Else’s World
      4. Sun Ra – Spontaneous Simplicity
      5. Sun Ra & His Solar‐Myth Arkestra – Plutonian Nights
      6. The Sun Ra Arkestra – Angels And Demons At Play
      7. Sun Ra – Island In The Sun
      8. Sun Ra – Rocket Number Nine Take Off For Planet Venus
      9. Sun Ra – Solar Differentials 

      LP2
      1. Sun Ra And His Arkestra ‐ Afro Black
      2. Sun Ra And His Intergalactic Infinity Arkestra - Have You Heard The Latest News From Neptune
      3. Sun Ra – Dance Of The Cosmo Aliens
      4. Sun Ra – Trying To Put The Blame On Me
      5. Sun Ra And His Solar Arkestra – Planet Earth
      6. Sun Ra And His Myth Science Arkestra – The Nile
      7. Sun Ra And His Solar Arkestra – Reflects Motion
      8. Sun Ra And His Solar Arkestra – Reflects Motion (part 2)
      9. Sun Ra – Ancient Ethiopia 10. Sun Ra And His Arkestra – Interplanetary Music
      11. Sun Ra And His Myth Science Arkestra – We Travel The Spaceways  


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