The Sun Ra Arkestra under the direction of Marshall Allen will appear at the Jazz Improv LIVE! Festival & Convention in New York City on Friday, October 26, 2007. The performance will be at 2:30 p.m. at the Manhattan Center Grand Ballroom, 34th St. & 8th Avenue, right across the street from New York’s Penn Station.
It has been said that wherever you go in the history of jazz, the Sun Ra Arkestra has been there and left. An Arkestra experience takes its audience through the history of the music with an otherworldly perspective and leaves them in another world full of possibilities and new directions. Sun Ra has been widely acclaimed as being the founder of the avant-garde jazz movement and he has influenced and inspired musicians who have a firm focus on the future while recognizing the path that brings them to the beyond. The jazz of today sounds a lot like the jazz that Sun Ra played over 40 years ago. What the Sun Ra Arkestra does now is a taste of what the future of jazz will be decades from now. The Arkestra is the epitome of jazz improvisation, which makes it so appropriate to be a part of a festival that has “Jazz Improv” in its title.
When Sun Ra left the planet in 1993, the leadership of the Arkestra was assumed by legendary tenor saxophonist John Gilmore until he left this dimension in 1995. Since then, Marshall Allen has been Musical Director and has added a new scope to the Arkestra’s repetoire by adding his own unique compositions alongside those of Sun Ra to keep the direction of the band fresh and continually pushing forward. Unlike many “ghost” bands, the Sun Ra Arkestra is actually a spirit band – constantly moving ahead with the spiritual influence of Sun Ra, but with the experience of alumni who worked with Sun Ra in the Arkestra and who have dedicated their lives to the sound of the Arkestra. Marshall Allen leads the veterans in this band with 49 years of continuous service in the Arkestra. You can expect to hear new Marshall Allen compositions in their world premiere at the Jazz Improv LIVE! Convention & Festival.
Another exciting feature of the Jazz Improv LIVE! Convention & Festival will be a panel titled “The Influence of Sun Ra” moderated by John Szwed (author of the Sun Ra biography “Space Is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra”) with Marshall Allen and Danny Thompson as panelists. This panel will take place Friday, October 26, 2007 at 6:00 p.m. in the Sutton Place Suite of the New Yorker Hotel adjacent to Manhattan Center at 34th Street & 8th Avenue in New York City.
Marshall Allen and Danny Thompson draw upon their combined 82 years of experience in the Arkestra to answer questions regarding Sun Ra’s influence on them. Marshall will discuss the Ra influence on his original compositions now performed by the Arkestra, his leadership of the current Arkestra, and how Ra influenced his life. Since Marshall was historically the first musician to ever play free on the saxophone, the initial audition and interaction with Sun Ra when joining the Arkestra in 1958 along with how Sun Ra wrote and arranged compositions featuring Marshall provide for plenty of discussion.
Sun Ra in one of his “cosmo drama” presentations (that served as a precursor to rap music) said “They tried to fool you – now I’ve got to school you – about jazz, the real jazz.” What better place to get schooled about jazz than October 25 – 28, 2007 at the Jazz Improv LIVE! Convention & Festival where there will be 657 jazz artists participating in 100 performances and 80 panels. There will also be 82 booths in a 15,000 square foot Exhibition Hall with all sorts of jazz related merchandise and services.
Advance registration is now available for Jazz Improv LIVE! with Full Conference Passes at $195 ($125 for students) and Single Day Passes at $125 ($75 for students). On Site Registration for Full Conference Passes will be $225. To register, please visit:
www.jazzimprov.com/live or phone 888-472-0670.
To download the 32 page festival brochure, please visit:
www.jazzimprov.com/live/program.pdf
To view the schedule of all performances and seminars, please visit:
www.jazzimprov.com/live/schedule.html
For additional information about the Sun Ra Arkestra, please visit:
www.thesunraarkestra.com
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