On the occasion of the 100th birthday of Marshall Allen, IN+OUT Records invited the Sun Ra Arkestra into the studio with 24 musicians.

As if from the farthest reaches of space, a tremendous positive energy has come to us via Light 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 25th, 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 16th, 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.

1. Lights On A Satellite
2. Dorothy’s Dance
3. Big John’s Special
4. Images
5. Friendly Galaxy
6. Baby Won’t You Please Be Mine
7. Holiday For Strings
8. Tapestry From An Asteroid
9. Reflects Motion
10. Way Down Yonder In New Orleans

This immaculately honed, wholly impassioned new recording opens on the mildly abrasive, yet rhythmically jaunty title track Lights On A Satellite and the joyfully soulful Dorothy’s Dance, a blistering Big John’s Special and then come both the forthrightly earnest Images and the all-embracing swings, loops, and all over rhythmic melodies of Friendly Galaxy.

Along next is the delightfully melodious Baby Won’t You Please Be Mine and that is in turn backed beautifully by the Thelonious Monk-esque coolness of Holiday For Strings, the dutiful trumpet ballad Tapestry From An Asteroid, the album rounding out on the harmonious-imbibed combination of vocalized sounds within Reflects Motion, closing on the euphoniously glorified magnificence of Way Down Yonder In New Orleans.

As a tribute to the life’s work of Marshall Allen, Frank Kleinschmidt of IN+OUT Records invited the Sun Ra Arkestra into the studio with 24 musicians in the largest possible line-up, with the goal of documenting the music in its polyphony and expansion in space and time in the best possible way.

It is not only the variety of instruments used, but also the fact that musicians from four generations come together with a repertoire that spans 100 years of jazz history.

Musicians: Marshall Allen – leader, alto sax, EVI, gong, additional vocals Tara Middleton – vocals, violin Knoel Scott – alto & baritone sax, congas, additional vocals Anthony Nelson – clarinet, baritone sax Nasir Dickerson – tenor sax James Stewart – flute, tenor sax Chris Hemingway – alto sax Michael Ray – trumpet, vocals Cecil Brooks – trumpet Vincent Chancey – french horn Brent White – trombone & bass trombone Dave Davis – trombone Robert Stringer – trombone Nina Bogomas – harp Owen Brown Jr. – violin Gwen Laster – violin Melanie Dyer – viola Farid Barron – piano, keyboards, moog theremin Carl LeBlanc – guitar, vocals Dave Hotep – guitar Tyler Mitchell – bass George Gray – drums Elson Nascimento – surdo, percussion.

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