Marshall Allen is the third man to helm the Sun Ra Arkestra. The 92-year-old alto saxophonist joined the group in 1958 and led its reed section for over 40 years. An avant-garde multi-instrumentalist, Allen is also known as a pioneer for fusing jazz with traditional African sounds, working with Babatunde Olatunji to introduce the kora to Western ears. In his lecture at the 2016 Red Bull Music Academy, Allen is joined by Danny Ray Thompson, a basoon player and saxophonist who joined the Arkestra in the mid-’60s, managed Sun Ra for 10 years and handled production of the El Saturn recordings. Together, the pair recall their career with one of music’s greatest visionaries, from the rehearsals to his humor and philosophies.

TOPICS:
3:34 – Joining the Arkestra
14:40 – “Discipline was obviously a very big deal.”
44:09 – Living in Sun Ra’s Sun Palace
51:27 – Sun Ra’s philosophies and his music
1:11:19 – Sun Ra’s death
1:20:40 – Marshall Allen’s early music days

MUSIC:
12:16 – Sun Ra and his Arkestra – “Spontaneous Simplicity” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPZ41m…
53:52 – Sun Ra and his Arkestra – “Shadow World (Live in Berlin)”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtHmqb…
1:32:27 – Sun Ra and his Arkestra ft. June Tyson – “Somebody Else’s World” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JJwwy…

The Red Bull Music Academy is a global music institution committed to fostering creativity in music. We celebrate music, its culture, and the transformative minds behind it. Begun in 1998, the Academy has taken the core principles that underlie its annual workshop for selected participants and applied this curatorial approach to events, lectures, and city-wide festivals throughout the year.

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