STILL MAKING WRONG RIGHT
Music legend Allen continues to lead jazz group Sun Ra Arkestra
Marshall Allen — the 96-yearold jazz artist who for the past quarter-century has served as the leader of one of the genre's most essential groups, the Sun Ra Arkestra — has embraced the current pandemic situation by spending hours each day playing music. Allen remains wondrously optimistic, always eager to find new possibilities in every note.
“I've got 15 to 20 instruments I gotta play,” Allen says with great exuberance during a phone conversation. “Oboe, flute, piccolo, trumpet, trombone, tenor sax, baritone, three or four altos, soprano ...”
He's recorded hundreds of albums as both leader and sideman, and performed thousands of concerts touching all parts of the world, dating back to the 1940s. The act Allen is most associated with is the Sun Ra Arkestra. The eponymous leader of the Arkestra was a self-proclaimed celestial being who was one of the most visionary jazz musicians of the 20th century, championing individualism and expression over precision and perfection. It is no exaggeration to say that Sun Ra redefined the limits of what was possible for the music, and since his death in 1993, Allen has carried on that legacy.
Born in 1924 in Louisville, Allen enlisted in the military, which is where his career as a musician began. He played clarinet and alto saxophone in the 17th Division Special Service Band as part of the Army's 92nd Infantry Division, popularly known as the Buffalo Soldiers. Allen is one of the last surviving members of the famed Black cavalry.
While stationed in Paris, Allen performed with the likes of pianist Art Simmons, saxophonist Don Byas and alto reedist James Moody. He enrolled at the Paris Conservatory, where he studied clarinet with musician and educator Ulysse Delécluse. After a few years of playing with local bands in Chicago, Allen heard that Sun Ra, who was becoming a force in the city's jazz scene, was in search of musicians.
“He was talking about the Bible, ancient history and all these different things,” Allen remembers about the long-ago meeting.
“You know, and music and stuff. And I'm just standing there listening. Every night, I get off from work, I'd go over there and practice.”
He later met Sun Ra for a gig and they played together on their first tune, Spontaneous Simplicity. After playing it, note for note, Sun Ra asked Allen to play it again, just from feeling. “You did something right, now make wrong right,” was something he learned that night and would continue to remind himself of for years to come. That's how Allen first joined the band in 1957.
Among the many lessons that Allen learned during his more than 35 years playing alongside Sun Ra, discipline was one of the most important.
“He stayed on my case to keep my discipline up,” Allen says.
I'm not a Sun Ra, but I know one thing ... I want them to pay attention and I want them (to) when I say play, play.
MARSHALL ALLEN
“(Sun Ra) rehearsed every day, seven days a week. That kind of put a dent on me 'cause I was kind of wild in (those) days. I would be mad, because I couldn't run and he would keep me at it — music, music, rehearse, rehearse ... every day. So I'd finally give up and say, `Oh, I may as well go on and do it, and try to do it right.'”
Swirling marks the first studio release from the Sun Ra Arkestra since 1999's A Song for the Sun. With more than a dozen members in the Arkestra's current roster, Allen leads it today much like Sun Ra led him more than 60 years ago.
“He didn't want you to play what you know in your head, but the real feeling, the soul, the heart,” Allen says. “I would always get confused by that, but really, he just wanted me to play from my heart.”
The majority of the Arkestra members (including Allen) are classically trained, and though most of the original charts are on hand, they often eschew notes on the page in search of a feeling — a constant reminder that this music is being passed down “aurally” and is also a rich part of oral tradition.
The gravity of being both a colleague and pupil of Allen's, whose experiences in music rival those of any living musician, are not lost on the band's current members.
“When you try to think about talking about Marshall, because it's so personal, it really gives me a moment to kind of think about what could I say or how do I express that more than just, `Oh, he's a great guy,'” says Arkestra vocalist and violinist Tara Middleton, a member since 2012. “It's so much deeper than that,” she says.
“I'm not a Sun Ra, but I know one thing,” Allen says. “I want them to pay attention and I want them (to) when I say play, play.”