Marshall Allen, almost 101, has released a delightful ‘debut’ album

When Marshall Allen’s New Dawn was released on Valentine’s Day, it was hailed as an unprecedented event — the “debut solo album” by a 100-year-old jazz legend.

That feat has more to do with marketing than music. Setting aside the countless albums Allen recorded during his seven-decade tenure as a member of the Sun Ra Arkestra, and the half-dozen Arkestra albums released under his leadership since he took over the band in 1995 (including the 2020 Grammy-nominated Swirling), there have also been a slew of sessions released under Allen’s name or in collaboration with other improvisers.

The claim, however, was good enough for the folks at Guinness World Records, who have officially certified Allen as the “oldest person to release a debut album (male).”

Semantics aside, it is undeniably miraculous that the indefatigable Marshall Allen strolled into Germantown’s Rittenhouse Soundworks studio two days after celebrating his centennial, and crafted an album as full of delights and eccentricities as New Dawn. All the more so that on Wednesday night he was on stage at World Café Live, celebrating the album’s release just a month and a half shy of turning 101.

Allen, clad in his Arkestran finery of sequined gold cap and multihued cape, took the stage to rapturous applause, introduced by baritone saxophonist, flutist, and clarinetist Knoel Scott.

An Arkestra member since 1979, and a longtime resident of the ensemble’s legendary house in Germantown, Scott was the driving force behind the recording of New Dawn along with German producer Jan Lankisch.

Scott reprised his role at World Café, directing the 10-piece ensemble featuring Marshall accompanied by Scott, trumpeter Cecil Brooks, guitarist Bruce Edwards, bassist Radu Ben Judah, drummer George Gray, and a string quartet led by violinist Owen Brown.

Between playing Allen’s uncanny melodies and blowing blustery solos on his baritone, Scott dashed across the stage, guiding the string players into an impromptu vamp or attuning the rhythm section to a sudden shift in mood or tempo.

It couldn’t be easy. An inveterate improviser, Allen is never one to stick to a plan, always subject to the whim of the moment. After Scott announced the album’s title track and brought out vocalist Ayanna Wildgoose, Allen essayed a lovely, breathy solo on alto sax. Then he wandered over to the string section, engaging the quartet in a back and forth and transforming the song into Sun Ra’s mesmeric ballad “Springtime Again.”

Sun Ra, the Arkestra founder, who died (or left the planet, in the band’s cosmic parlance) in 1993, continues to maintain a spiritual influence on all of Allen’s work, and the diverse predilections that formed the big band’s idiosyncratic sound. All that was on display throughout Wednesday’s show.

The concert, like the album, began with “African Sunset,” a hazy percussion-and-strings piece evocative of ‘60s exotica, that revealed that this band was Arkestra-like in its ability to veer wildly between the ramshackle and the transcendent.

That was followed by “Are You Ready,” a stomping number indebted to early rock and roll, propelled by Edwards’ Chuck Berry-esque guitar riffs. The raucous tempo spurred Allen to some of his most blistering altos of the night, drawing his trademark screams and bellows from the sax with a piercing ferocity undimmed by age.

“Sonny’s Dance” is an off-kilter bebop tune that provided a space for Allen to duet with Edwards, matching electric guitar runs with his EWI (electronic wind instrument), a synthesized sax from which Allen summons all manner of swoops, bleeps, and echoes. The African-inspired groove of “Boma,” Scott explained, stemmed from Allen’s work with the late Nigerian drummer Babatunde Olatunji, with whom he collaborated when “he could slip off when Sun Ra wasn’t looking.”

As the accolades pour in, Allen shows no sign of slowing. Later this month he’ll be anointed an NEA Jazz Master at the Kennedy Center, in a class that also includes Philadelphia native Marilyn Crispell.

He’ll be back on stage in Philly on May 23 at Solar Myth, which has become a second home for him since he stopped traveling upon doctor’s orders. In recent years he’s led an ever-changing series of all-star small bands under the name of Ghost Horizons, a compilation album of which will be his next release in May.

Wednesday’s 90-minute set culminated with the classic “Angels and Demons at Play,” which Allen cowrote with Sun Ra, and which has been a staple of Arkestra sets for decades.

On Wednesday, the incantatory tune stretched to 15 minutes with vocals by Rochelle Thompson. It was a celebratory finale for an artist who well deserves celebrating.