Music / Jazz
Review: Sun Ra Arkestra, The Lantern
It may be 100 years since the birth of Herman Blount (aka Sun Ra) but in many ways it is only now that his time has come thanks to a young audience able to grasp both classic swing and modal jazz-funk with equal enthusiasm. It was important that the Lantern audience had suspended their disbelief about the exotic sparkling costumes and cosmic Egyptology because there has never been a shred of irony or self-consciousness in the Sun Ra Arkestra. When vocalist Tara Middleton sang about the cosmos, Rocket Number 9 or waving a magic wand that was exactly what she meant and her assured smile told us so.
The 10-strong Arkestra may not have processed through the crowd to the stage, like in the old days, but they did burst into action with a convincingly big Basie-style swing number (Interplanetary Music). In due course that fell into an Errol Garner piano exploration before emerging as a free-from funk’n’swing interlude that eventually became a trumpet-led Cool-school workout, complete with stabbing brass and hectic drum and bass. Thought this 30 minute sequence the imposing figure of Marshall Allan, about to become 91 years old, stalked, sang and provided a mix of alto sax and breath-controlled synth to the mix with the authenticity of one who learned his trade before the war and has been following things closely ever since.
The gig proceeded in a sequence of surprising changes echoing doo-wop, swing and free jazz by turns. A particularly impressive ballad reading of When You Wish Upon A Star allowed Allen and tenor sax payer Knoel Scott to vividly deconstruct the tune before Tara Middleton delivered the vocals, and a similarly complicated reading of Every Day I Got The Blues stoked by a splendid baritone sax solo actually got the audience – whether young, old or Big Jeff – moving. As with everything else in the programme it was a thrilling combination of the classic and the unexpected delivered with conviction.
By the end there were forays off-stage, a line of sparkling costumes weaving through the gloom-shrouded crowd, but there wasn’t the need as the party had long started and wasn’t due to stop until the last bars of Travel The Spaceways echoed away and the band left the stage. It would have been greedy and/or cruel to demand the return of nonagenarian Marshall Allen so we dispersed equably, happy in the knowledge that the great Sun Ra’s legacy is both safely held and still relevant as we set out to travel the space ways home.
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