NEA Jazz Masters: Tribute to Marshall Allen
Marshall Allen’s inventive and distinctive saxophone playing, as well as his band arrangements, have made him a major force in jazz going into his hundredth year. He is best known for his work with Sun Ra, not only recording and performing with him from the 1950s to Sun Ra’s passing in 1993, but also for taking over the leadership of the Sun Ra Arkestra for the past 30 years.
Allen grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, and began taking clarinet lessons at the age of ten. During World War II, he enlisted in the Army, joining the 92nd Infantry Division, also known as the “Buffalo Soldiers,” and played clarinet and alto saxophone in the 17th Division Special Service Band. After the war, he stayed in Europe and studied clarinet with Ulysse Delécluse at the renowned Paris Conservatory before returning to the United States in 1951, settling in Chicago. It is there that he fatefully met Sun Ra and joined his band, eventually leading the reed section through Sun Ra’s formidable compositions. Allen was also interested in fusing avant-garde jazz with traditional African music, and was a regular collaborator with Babatunde Olatunji. Allen constructed his own kora, a West African stringed instrument, which he continues to play in concert.
Members of the Arkestra often lived together communally and stayed in the band for long periods. Allen followed Sun Ra from Chicago to New York City and finally to Philadelphia, where the building known as the Arkestral Institute of Sun Ra—where Allen continues to reside—was declared a historic landmark in 2022. The band’s concerts were legendary events, with the musicians in colorful sequin robes all playing percussive instruments in addition to their regular ones, sometimes including dancers and visual projections. Allen continues this tradition with the current Arkestra, and keeping with Sun Ra’s inventive nature, he plays an Electronic Valve Instrument in concert and recordings, which produces a dynamic range of sounds from flute to oboe to saxophone.
As one of the pioneers of the free jazz and avant-garde jazz movements of the 1960s, Allen is in demand by younger musicians interested in his sound, and not just from jazz. He has played with the likes of Sonic Youth, NRBQ, Phish, Digable Planets, and Medeski, Martin & Wood and has almost 200 credited performances and recordings to his name.
Although he no longer tours internationally and is limiting his performances to the Philadelphia area, he continues to compose, arrange, record, and perform with the Arkestra. He has also led the Sun Ra Arkestra in two recent, well-received recordings, the first in more than 20 years: Swirling and Living Sky.
