Marshall Allen's Ghost Horizons - Live in Philadelphia (Live) (2025) [Hi-Res]

Album review

There's a very good reason why Live in Philadelphia is credited to "Marshall Allen's Ghost Horizons" and not just to the legendary saxophonist. Although Allen—best-known, of course, for his work alongside Sun Ra, as well as his commitment to carrying the flame of the Arkestra after Ra left this planet—is very much the creative axis around which this music spins, the album documents a thoroughly collective enterprise.

Starting in November 2022, Ars Nova Workshop in Philadelphia organized a series of concerts with Allen as a leader/primary conspirator, where he, along with Arkestra guitarist DM Hotep, invited an ever-changing lineup of collaborators to join them on stage for largely improvisational sessions. Over the next two years, those musicians included Immanuel Wilkins, James Brandon Lewis, William Parker, Wolf Eyes; members of Yo La Tengo, Irreversible Entanglements, and The War on Drugs; and others.

Live in Philadelphia opens with a take on Sun Ra's "Seductive Fantasy," which, after a spoken intro, quickly unfolds into a rollicking instrumental improvisation—Allen's glorious horn emoting side by side with Hotep's frenetic guitar work is a dazzling and dizzying display—that makes it clear that, centenarian or not, Marshall Allen is still an incredibly daring player who also challenges his collaborators to be their most adventurous and exploratory. "Fantasy" and a couple other numbers are based on Ra compositions, but for the most part, the album is built upon the energy and electricity of live improvisation, much of which is centered around the sonic spaciness of Allen playing his trademark Steiner Electronic Valve Instrument more than his sax.

On "In the Silence of the Infinite," Allen's EVI is deployed alongside Hotep's kalimba and the restrained rhythms of Mikel Patrick Avery and Chad Taylor, while the ominous, challenging psychedelia of "Warn Them" pairs Allen and Hotep with the intense electronics of Wolf Eyes. Similarly removed from the "jazz tradition" is the hard-charging, percussion-forward "Cosmic Dreamers, Ode to Elegua" (featuring the four-piece Ade Ilu Lukumi Bata Ensemble as well as Kash Killion on cello and sarangi) and "Square the Circle," which brings in Yo La Tengo's James McNew on bass and electronics and Charlie Hall (The War on Drugs) on Mellotron.

There's still plenty here to honor Allen's history in the jazz vanguard, whether it's "Stay Lifted," which evokes Miles' mid-'60s dreaminess paired with a frenetic freedom, or numbers like "The Hills" (with Immanuel Wilkins) or "The Last Transmission" (with James Brandon Lewis and William Parker). In "On Solar Planes," Arkestra vocalist Tara Middleton lays it down clearly, quoting Ra's original poem of the same name: "New sound causes new vibrations." This philosophy not just undergirds these performances but was also the primary guiding tenet of Sun Ra and Marshall Allen's approach to music, making this album an incredible document of how vital that philosophy continues to be. © Jason Ferguson

Tracklist:
1 Seductive Fantasy (Live)
2 Back to You (Live)
3 We'll Wait For You / Hit That Jive, Jack (Live)
4 The Last Transmission (Live)
5 Stay Lifted (Live)
6 On Solar Planes (Live)
7 Space Ghost (Live)
8 The Hills (Live)
9 Square the Circle (Live)
10 In The Silence Of The Infinite (Live)
11 Cosmic Dreamers, Ode to Elegua (Live)
12 The Unknown (Live)
13 Warn Them (Live)
14 Slip Stream (Live)
15 Tachyons Flux From The Cosmic Blueprints (Live)
16 Rindima (Live)