Sun Ra Arkestra: Live at Babylon | Album review

Live at Babylon
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Artist: Sun Ra Arkestra
Genre: Jazz
Label: In & Out

Though the great and gloriously weird Sun Ra may have departed this planet in a bodily sense back in 1993, his ghost Arkestra plays on, now under the direction of veteran saxophonist Marshall Allen, one of Ra’s original lieutenants and a staunch defender of his legacy.

Live at Babylon is 2014 performance from a club in Istanbul. It captures that utterly unique mixture of old-school New York swing, New Orleans collective improv and Chicago avant-garde howling that made this longtime collective a minor but important influence on successive generations of jazz musicians.

The high energy set ticks all the Sun Ra boxes, both musically and politically, and includes a version of Ra's signature tune, Saturn, from whence, presumably, the great one is still listening and signalling his approval.

Cormac Larkin

Cormac Larkin

Cormac Larkin, a contributor to The Irish Times, is a musician, writer and director