09/10/2025
FOR YOUR GRAMMY® CONSIDERATION
BEST LARGE JAZZ ENSEMBLE ALBUM
"LIGHTS ON A SATELLITE"
Sun Ra Arkestra
UNDER THE DIRECTION OF MARSHALL ALLEN
"...arguably the best album the Arkestra has issued under Allen’s leadership." — Glide Magazine
“A century of jazz, alternately exuberant and mysterious.” —The Guardian
As if from the farthest reaches of space, a tremendous positive energy has come to us via Lights On A Satellite: It is Sun Ra's music, played by his Arkestra, more than 30 years after the legendary band founder's earthly demise - or, in other words, after his reported ascent to Saturn. Under the direction of Marshall Allen, the NEA Jazz Master (2025) and multi-instrumentalist, who celebrated his 100th birthday on May 25, 2024, Sun Ra's big band has arrived safely in the 21st century, after traveling Sun Ra's space ways for almost 70 years. This album pays tribute to the lifetime achievement of Marshall Allen, who leads the Sun Ra Arkestra since 1993. Recorded in Studio A at New York's Power Station on June 16, 2024, the album celebrates the mastery of the exceptional musician Marshall Allen as a multi-instrumentalist, arranger, bandleader, teacher, and guardian of Sun Ra's unique legacy.
Perhaps this day will one day become part of the collective jazz memory, for what we are experiencing here is a simultaneity of the non-simultaneous, projected into the future, a time machine traveling through 100 years of jazz, out of the free approach of the Sun Ra Arkestra and in its signature groove right into the heart of swing - with a century-old jazz master as captain. That in itself is a superlative. We are even more inspired by the power with which the virtuoso Marshall Allen continues his life's vocation.
LISTEN:
https://save-it.cc/inoutrecords/lights-on-a-satellite-album
