Music from the Space Waves along with the flavor of gumbo

12th November 2018   ·   0 Comments

By Geraldine Wyckoff
Contributing Writer

At times, a simple occurrence can become a life-changing experience. Some might call it fate or perhaps the quest for music that led saxophonist Marshall Allen to Sun Ra, the brilliantly innovative keyboardist, composer and bandleader. That was almost years ago and Allen spent his entire career in Ra’s orbit and took over the leadership of the Sun Ra Arkestra when his mentor left the planet in 1993. The approximately 15-piece Arkestra will perform under Allen’s direction on Friday, November 16, and Saturday, November 17, at the Music Box.

“I was in Chicago and I went to a record store and I got a demo and Sun Ra’s band was on it,” Marshall, 94, explains. “So I took it home and played it and I went back the next day and I say, ‘Do you have anything else by this band, Sun Ra?’ “He (the shop owner) says, ‘Yeah, there’s another little record over there that I got. Where do you live?’ ‘I live over on the South side.’ ‘Well, he rehearses at a barroom over there every night.’ So I went there one night when I got off from work and I had my horn. And there was Sun Ra sitting at a table writing music.”

At this time, Allen was already an experienced musician. He played clarinet in the U.S. Army marching and jazz band when he served in the 92nd division, known as the Buffalo Division from 1942 until 1949. When he was discharged he attended a music conservatory in Paris before returning to Chicago.

“I thought I was ready and everything but when I met Sun Ra, boy, I had to start all over again,” Allen remembers with a laugh. “I said, ‘Oh I met my master at last.’”

Allen, who switched to alto saxophone “because Johnny Hodges played it so pretty,” continued to walk the six blocks to the bar on a nightly basis. “Every night I’d be there and he (Sun Ra) would talk about the bible, outer space, everything,” Allen recalls, adding that he’d be there until the wee hours even though his day job started at 8 am. When a number of Chicago musicians migrated to New York, the saxophonist finally got a regular “chair” in the band. At the urging, or more like the insistence, of Sun Ra band member, the great tenor saxophonist John Gilmore, Allen also took up the flute.

“They had me playing flute before I could play the flute,” says Allen, an incredibly lively spirit whose conversation is peppered with laughter.

Allen stands as the only original member of the Sun Ra Arkestra that is, of course, performing in front of a new generation of concert goers.

“Sun Ra used to say that the music was for the 21st century and the musicians are following in line, right on it,” says Allen adding that he’s also enjoying the young audiences. On Saturday night, he’ll get a chance to interact with concert-goers during a question and answer segment that will precede the show.

“You never know what’s comin’ up,” Allen says of these sessions. “What I tell them about Sun Ra is that he was a master and a teacher and a disciplinarian. He would always tell us a man can’t learn unless he has some discipline.”

Allen describes the Arkestra’s usual performances, which they continue to take around the world, as being a “like a little history lesson of different generations of music.” The ensemble hits on swing, bebop and then “we come on up to the space age.”

“Expect to tap your feet and clap your hands and have some fun,” the enthusiastic band director suggests. We’re goin’ play a little of everything, so something there gonna get ‘em. It’s time to express yourself.”

Sitting in the three-story “band” house in Philadelphia that he fixed up and sold to Sun Ra for a dollar in 1968, Allen, a tremendous musician and composer with seemingly boundless energy, becomes philosophical.

“I woke up one day and said, “What am I playing music for – money, woman, fame?” I’m playing music for my well-being to keep me happy and tappin’ my feet.”

Family, Friends, Food, Brass Bands and Memories

Set the Stage for the Treme Creole Gumbo Festival

The sound of brass instruments encouraged by a big bass drum, the drive of a snare and the aroma of a pot of gumbo bubbling on a stove have long been the essence of the Treme neighborhood. Those elements, plus the family relationships and longtime friendships that thrive there, will be celebrated on Saturday, November 17, and Sunday, November 18 at the free 11th annual Treme Creole Gumbo Festival.

This year’s event, presented in Armstrong Park, the cultural heart of the 6th Ward, will hold a special meaning as it will be dedicated to the much missed Travis “Trumpet Black” Hill, whose sudden death on May 4, 2015 at the young age of 28 from a dental infection shocked and deeply sadden the community that refuses to let his memory fade.

It is embedded in New Orleans musicians to respond to the death of one of their own by picking up their instruments and playing. That tradition will continue at the festival as it did on the streets of Treme upon Hill’s passing.

On Saturday, the festival’s line-up will include Hill’s cousin, trumpeter and vocalist James Andrews leading his band of all-stars striking up at 12:30 p.m. Trombonist Corey Henry & the Treme Funktet, a super group of which Hill was a member, takes the stage at 2:30 p.m. Sunday’s schedule boasts the Hot 8 Brass Band one of several brass bands – the New Birth and New Breed – that benefited from Hill’s dynamic presence.

Watch out for Ashlin Parker’s Trumpet Mafia that closes out Saturday’s offerings. The fully trumpet-loaded ensemble is packing and out to get ya.

This article originally published in the November 12, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.