feature photo: Chad Fowler
Tyler Mitchell and Marshall Allen are a couple of guys from the Sun Ra orbit who got together for some music that lives up to the cosmic audaciousness of their mutual mentor. Dancing Shadows is a celebration of the forward-looking jazz of Sun Ra led by two Ra protégés generations apart.
In addition to playing in Sun Ra’s Arkestra during the 80s, Mitchell backed Art Taylor, Steve Grossman, Shirley Horn, Rashied Ali, Wynton Marsalis and Jon Hendricks. He didn’t issue an album under his own name until he was well in his 50s (Live At Small’s, 2012), and he has since re-joined the Arkestra. For his long-awaited follow-up to Smalls and his debut studio album, Mitchell has enlisted the help of his bandleader and longtime collaborator and alto saxophonist Marshall Allen.
At 97 years old, Allen is most likely the world’s oldest-living jazz musician and certainly the oldest one still performing. He joined the Arkestra in the late ’50s and took leadership of the band in the same year of Ra’s death in 1993. He still leads it today. Scott Yanow has described Allen’s highly distinctive saxophone style as “Johnny Hodges from another dimension.”
Mitchell and Allen formed a septet for this occasion, with Chris Hemmingway (tenor sax), Nicoletta Manzini (alto sax), Wayne Smith (drums) and Elson Nascimento (percussion). Only Hemingway and Manzini are not Arkestra members. Dancing Shadows pays homage to the legacy of the Sun Ra Arkestra with slate of songs that mix Sun Ra songs with originals that hold true to the spirit of Ra and an imaginative remake of a song from one of Ra’s musical kindred spirits, Thelonious Monk.
That otherworldly magic they create is done with less instruments, without — most notably — a piano or any other chordal instrument. As Mitchell explains in a recent interview, “I left the piano off of Dancing Shadows because even though Sun Ra was a piano player, I didn’t hear the piano in the compositions and arrangements we were doing. Instead, everything the piano would be doing if the Arkestra were playing the piece is spread throughout the different parts.” It’s true, those chords that Sun Ra would have played as usually handled collectively by the sax players.
The half of the repertoire drawn from the Arkestra lean heavily toward the late 50’s-early 60’s period, which were less experimental but boasted some very good melodies. All the same, these songs looked forward in some way or another. “Interstellar Loways” is a song on which Marshall played flute when it was originally recorded back in 1959. This update features Mitchell’s sturdy bass walk and Marshall pouring in raw emotion via his sax. The Arkestra concert staple “Enlightenment” begins with Mitchell’s sensitive portrayal of the basic melody via arco bass before launching into the song’s familiar strut and a big band arrangement distilled down for the sextet.
“Angels and Demons” is a Sun Ra classic composed by Marshall and Ronnie Boykins, and Mitchell replicates Boykins’ essential bass line as Marshall adds the spaced out effect through his EVI. “A Call For All Demons” sticks pretty close to the original, down to its Latin pulse, and that only illuminates how many Sun Ra songs still sound fresh today. “Dancing Shadows” comes from a time where Sun Ra started stretching out more forcefully toward avant-garde and you can clearly hear in this rendition how the band deftly straddles both the traditional and freer sides of jazz. Naturally, Allen is leading the charge.
The bass and drums on Monk’s “Skippy” say ‘funk’ while the three saxes swing like mad.
Manzini’s “Spaced Out” is within the span of four minutes encapsulates much of what is great about Sun Ra’s music: it, too is rooted equally in jazz tradition and jazz future, and in leading the band through all the mystical passages Mitchell deftly keeps the song loosely tethered to the ground. The theremin-sounding sound is not a keyboardist, but Allen; he plays an EVI, wind-based controller for a synthesizer, making a fine substitute for the primitive electronic keyboards Ra played back in the day. It not only provides the cosmic aspect found in Ra’s music, it’s also a reminder that Ra is the true originator of electro-acoustic jazz.
Mitchell wrote the bluesy ballad “Nico” and “Nico Revisited” with Manzini in mind, both versions exemplifying the pure beauty of the sound of saxophone when put in capable hands. “Marshall the Deputy” is another Mitchell salute to a bandmate, this time to his main partner for this record. And Allen brings the fire to this skittering, out-bop tune.
Tyler Mitchell along with Marshall Allen has successfully made a Sun Ra record with a streamlined version of the Sun Ra Arkestra. Any Sun Ra fan should instantly warm up to Dancing Shadows.. For those looking to dig deeper into the open-minded cosmic jazz of Ra, here’s an excellent primer.
Dancing Shadows is now on sale through Mahakala Music, and you can get it from Bandcamp.
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