Chapter 20: The Other Side Of The Sun

In which I reminisce about Ray's Jazz Shop while listening to Marshall Allen's debut solo LP, and share an old mix of fire music.

An album dropped last Friday which I didn’t realise I’d been waiting for most of my life…

Ray’s Jazz Shop bag

In the late 80s you could often find my jazzy mum and I rummaging through the musty shelves of Ray’s Jazz Shop on Shaftesbury Avenue in central London. Having begun her jazz journey in 50s Soho, my mum would be in the modern and trad sections, while I’d recently developed an unhealthy interest in the strange sounds which lurked behind the avant-garde and free-jazz dividers. Albums adorned with abstract paintings, or sometimes homemade with felt tips, and featuring obfuscate titles like ‘Air Above Mountains (Buildings Within)’ and ‘That The Evening Sky Fell Through The Glass Wall And We Stood Alone Somewhere?’ or in Anthony Braxton’s case there might simply be a diagram.

I was mostly picking up old stuff, and the cheap old stuff at that because I was barely into my teens, and satiating my lust for black wax via any pennies I could muster. Ray’s famous “rare as hen’s teeth” rack was off limits, but I’d still leaf through it, coveting copies of Mtume’s Rebirth Cycle or Angels and Demons At Play by Sun Ra. Then one day in ‘89 I spotted a brand new LP called Hours After. The cover didn’t have quite the same mystique as the lithograph on Super-Sonic Jazz or the hand drawn doodles of Disco 3000, but it was still Sun Ra, and a drop in the ocean at £5.99. I bagged it, took it home and climbed inside. A little piece of me has lived there ever since, especially on ‘Love On A Far Away Planet’.

When I got my first Saturday job, bagging up fruit n veg for £3.85 an hour, much of my measly wages went on records, and while there were plenty of hip hop, ragga, rave, funk, soul, latin, dub (etc etc) releases to try and squeeze out of pay-cheque, I often put a bit aside for a Sun Ra or two when the opportunity arose.

Sadly, I never saw Ra in action. I can still remember the moment I read the awful news of his passing in issue 22 of Straight No Chaser magazine. Guru and Donald Byrd were on the cover, and in the box beneath them, between Gloria Estefan and Paul Weller, it read “Sun Ra: Tribute To An Astral Jazzman”. I feverishly flicked through the pages til I found the feature. Gutted.

The good news is, despite having left this mortal coil, Sun Ra continued touring, not physically of course, but as his group’s spirit guide, channelled through the Arkestra’s new leader Marshall Allen who’d been honking his horn by Sun Ra’s side since the late ‘50s. Under Allen’s guidance, Sun Ra Arkestra are perhaps the only act who can legitimately still perform with an absent member heading the bill. Ra’s influence within the group is still apparent, and while I’ve often encountered confused people who claim they’ve seen Sun Ra live in the 30 or so years since (they didn’t realise) he died, it’s safe to say they at least felt his presence.

I’ve caught the Arkestra a few times over the years, and it’s never short of magical. The last was in 2015 when I opened for them at Islington Assembly Rooms with a selection of avant-garde/free/fire/spiritual jazz, much of which I probably bought at Ray’s Jazz years ago.

At the end of my second set after the Arkestra had finished, as I bowed out with ‘Pieces Of A Man’ by Gil Scott-Heron, I was approached by Cosmic Sounds label-boss Željko Kerleta who asked me if I’d be up for supplying a mix for his TROG Rotation show on Serbian radio. I said yes in a heartbeat, and a few days later there was an hour’s worth of bells, shakers and wailing saxes in Željko’s inbox which has been up on Tru Thoughts’ Mixcloud page for the best part of a decade now, but if you’re one of my beloved full subscribers, you can download it from the link at the bottom.

The gig itself was mesmerising. I’d blagged my family in, and we all sat looking over the balcony as Marshall Allen led the Arkestra across the cosmos, only to return to earth briefly for some old fashioned swing, rekindling their traditional big band roots. As the lights struck the Assembly Hall’s huge disco ball, my mum turned to me and said “I feel like I’m back at the Lyceum”.

Sun Ra Arkestra at Islington Assembly Hall, March 2015

Allen was on flying form that night, wailing his way through the set with a brief refrain from his alto-sax for some wind-synth action. Before the show I’d said hello briefly, he seemed distracted and I didn’t want to bother him further as the promoter assisted him on a mission to find a post box, postcards in hand, presumably US-bound but perhaps to Plutonia.

There was some debate over Allen’s age that night, speculation put him anywhere between 80 and 100. Someone claimed he wasn’t sure himself, but it turns out he was 90. Nearly a decade later, just days after his 100th birthday, Allen entered the studio to lay down his debut solo album, 75 years since his first recording session as Red Allen. New Dawn hit the shops on Valentine’s day last week, a love letter from the outer spaceways to the tapestry of tomorrow (and other Ra-related references). I was especially taken with the rhythm n blues stomp of ‘Are You Ready’ led by Bruce Edwards’ RnR guitar, and I dearly love the title track featuring Neneh Cherry who channels Early In The Morning era Lorez Alexandria, or maybe even Asha Puthli when she guested with Ornette Coleman.

The whole album is obviously incredible, though my favourite so far might just be the reimagining of ‘Angels And Demons At Play’ which Allen co-wrote and recorded with Ra back in 1960. Somehow this slower rendition has a subtle skank to it, which I’d imagine wasn’t lost on the session’s engineer Hannes Plattmeir who applies a hint of echo here and there. In fact it’s ripe for a full on dub reworking if anyone knows how I can get hold of anyone involved in the project (unlikely as I’m sure such a thing might be).

As I said at the top, without knowing it I’ve been waiting for this album for most of my life, or a large portion of it since I first heard Allen’s ecstatic sax on Hours After, though that pales next to Allen himself who waited three quarters of a century to deliver this to the world. Grab New Dawn from Bandcamp now, and the the mixtape I put together following the Sun Ra Arkestra show is available at the bottom after the tracklist with some thoughts on each track…

DJ Wrongtom - Upper Street Arkestrations

1. The Revolutionary Ensemble - The People’s Republic

   My mum gave me this album out of the blue when I was about 16. It’s difficult, often impenetrable, and when a groove does get going it never feels far from collapse. I love it, though I only used a brief refrain of percussion and yelping to underly John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders’s invocation from ‘The Sun’ by Alice Coltrane.

2. Compost - Bwaata

   Another one I picked up in my teens from a bargain bin for just 50p because the cover was slightly split. Compost was drummer Jack DeJohnette’s fusion outfit, though calling it fusion sells this album short. ‘Take Off Your Body’ is a wild wigged-out psych-jazz onslaught of almost thrash proportions while ‘Bwaata’ here is a gentle lullaby which rolls and rattles along to an ending which comes way too soon at less than 5 minutes. Sometimes I wish it would never end.

3. Pat Crumbly Sextet - Sewofa Chant

   Some underrated Brit-jazz recorded in ‘85 by the late saxophonist Pat Crumly and his group who sound so much larger here than a six piece.

4. Ralph Thomas - Spellbound

   This record, and the rarely mentioned work of saxophonist Ralph Thomas became an obsession for years, partly based on a wild acid-sax and somewhat punky-reggae 7” I stumbled on. An obsession which led me to Thomas himself who gave me permission to reissue his Eastern Standard Time LP from 1981. For reasons I won’t bore you with here, it didn’t happen, though eventually BBE released it, so I’m glad it found a slightly wider audience eventually.

5. Herbie Mann - Norwegian Wood

   This actually did come from the rare as hen’s teeth rack at Ray’s Jazz, and I think it’s only rare due to the colour of the Atlantic label, which isn’t a big deal for me, though I’m just happy to have a copy. Believe it or not I’d never heard The Beatles’ version of this song when I picked this up. Sacrilege, I’m sure, but I prefer Mann’s rendition.

6. M’Boom - It’s Time

   Me, a percussionist who favours a rattly groove peppered with shakers and tinkling glokenspiels? Of course I love this entirely drum-focussed project from Max Roach’s M’Boom.

7. Har-You Percussion Group - Oua Train

   Another one I picked up when I started dabbling in percussion in my teens. When I played my first ever DJ set at The Blue Note back in 1995, this was in my box, and still is if the occasion is right, though I usually play the latin banger ‘Welcome To The Party’. The Arkestra gig was a rare opportunity to drop Har-You’s Coltrane tribute.

8. Solar Plexus - Rain Forest

   Another bargain bin find, and a joyful noise from this latin-fusion big band. I especially love Denny Berthiaume’s synths squiggling around the rhythm, and going head to head with his bandmate Randy Masters on trumpet.