Marshall Allen and Danny Thompson

Jeff Mao

We are very, very excited to have this gentleman here with us. A multi-instrumentalist, composer, member of the Sun Ra Arkestra since the 1950s, director of the Sun Ra Arkestra for the past twenty plus years. Please welcome, Mr. Marshall Allen. (applause)

Marshall Allen

Thank you, thank you.

Jeff Mao

Welcome.

Marshall Allen

That’s nice. Made my heart bubble.

Jeff Mao

How does that feel? You’re a part of this orchestra, arkestra rather, for many, many years and then you make that transition to eventually lead it.

Marshall Allen

It’s just like life is. I’m sitting here, you talking and then y’all got up and cheered for me. That’s a feeling and that’s spontaneous. It’s a good feeling. It’s the same thing with the arkestra. When you play some music and you come away feeling good. You play the music for your wellbeing so you can give others something when you play. Y’all made my well being with the cheer. You see? It’s not complicated, it’s very simple. You see?

Jeff Mao

I mean, I think there’s a lot of Sun Ra fans in this room. There are probably some who are not familiar with Sun Ra. For somebody who is not, perhaps, what is the best way to explain who and what Sun Ra is?

Marshall Allen

All right, like we’re all young at one time. We’re looking for our place in space. I come out of the army and I started over at the National Conservatory in Paris. Then I come back home and I’m ready. I thought I was, anyway. I’m ready to find my place in a band because I love bands. I was around Chicago. I heard about Sun Ra through a record producer and jazz analyst and whatever you want to call it. He had a record store so he gave me a record with Sun Ra’s music on it. I heard the music and I fell in love with the sound of the music and the way it was played. I’d say, "Oh, Lord, that’s beautiful." I went back to buy another one, he says, "You know, Sun Ra is looking for a musician. He’s always looking for young musicians with talent that want to play." I said, "Yeah?" He said, "Yeah, he lives on the south side." I said, "I live over there." They was rehearsing in ballrooms. They had a rehearsal place. Everyday they would rehearse. I said, "I’m going over there."

I took my little horn and I marched over to Sun Ra, and he was in a ballroom. The band was rehearsing, he was writing music or poetry, something. Anyway, and I asked him to join. He talked about the Bible, Ancient Egypt, and outer space, everything but music. I sit there with him for four hours. Then he says, "Oh, I’m going over to see a band playing next door, and we got to eat, and I’m going over there." I went to eat and we went to hear the band, and I’m still listening to Sun Ra talking about the Bible and Ancient Egypt and outer space. He ain’t said nothin’ to me about playin’, so... I was late for work next morning, of course. I was working. I was late for work and came in all blurry-eyed because I sit up there all night listening to Sun Ra’s philosophy and things like that, and music. He told me, "Come over to John Gilmore’s house." He lived in that neighborhood.

Jeff Mao

John Gilmore, the saxophone player.

Marshall Allen

We’ll see. I’ll be over there playing, so he was over there in the morning. I went over there and we played. He played. John was asleep because he had a gig last night, he was laying in bed, so he come, "Play this." "Play what?" He played on the piano [makes sound]. "Play that." "Play what?" Look for some music or something. No, it wasn’t. He gave me a little... He would play something and told me to play it to see what I played like with no music and no everything. I said, "Oh, boy." He played a song and I played on it, so he said, "OK, come to rehearsal tomorrow." We come to rehearsal. I sit there. Everybody’s rehearsing and I’m sitting there like that. Then everybody stopping to cool and then he would play the piano. Then he’d tell me to play a little bit. He wanted to see how I played. "That’s good, but you’re too sentimental,” and this and that. Then I was saying, "What is all of this?" (laughs) Everyday I’d come back and say, "Now you’re not going to get rid of me like that." I was determined to get in that band.

He’d tow me out everyday, every night I’d come from work I’d go to rehearsal instead of going home. He finally give me a part, one song. I didn’t have a chair so I had to stand by the piano and the bass. I stand up there, no seat. Just stand up, right there while everybody else was sitting and playing. But I’m going to get into that band so that’s where I got in it. I had my discipline and I was determined that all this talk about space and the Bible and everything, do I know this, do I know that? I learned to be quiet, shut my mouth and learn.

That’s how I got in the band. I had the discipline to listen to him and try to understand everything he was sayin’, which I didn’t. I never... Anyway, he let me play one song that we rehearsed at John Gilmore’s house and that was my song. It was called “Spontaneous Simplicity.” That was the only song I played in the band. Other than that, I would come to rehearsal and I got the music and he says, "Oh, you’re playin’ it but you playin’ it too sentimental and you’re playin’ it this way, and you’re not playing it right."

Other words, there was a code he had of how to express a simple line of notes. Now there’s a thousand ways I was supposed to express it but he had a certain way. I had to learn how to express this note. How do I... The note said [imitates notes]. I’d always be forward a note, before the note. I was what they call syncopation, always before [makes rhythm] against the [makes rhythm grid]. I had to learn the language that he spoke in music and the intervals that he used. They were different and his songs was in these different intervals.

That was my problem is to learn that because every time he says, "Oh, that’s nice, that’s wonderful, that’s sentimental last night. That’s good, you’re alright but it’s not what I want." I’m figuring out, “What does he want?” Through the years, anyway, I found out that I was using my head for all I know and not my heart for all I could do. That’s double thing, you know in the spirit of it. What he was trying to do was bring not what I know about music and play in like that, he wanted the spirit. The spirit was flowing, that what he’s bringing out. That’s how I got in the band. I took all of the insults or what you want to call them, stood my ground and tried to bring out what he said I didn’t bring out, the spirit of the music.

Jeff Mao

Now, you said you didn’t understand what he was telling you in terms of the philosophy not at least at first...

Marshall Allen

He said we’re going to the moon and I’m saying, “What?” (laughs). And he said, "I was trans-molecular through space that…” “What?” No, it wasn’t me saying or denying him or anything, inside I was kind of, "What?" (laughs) That’s what he meant, see, so, it was confusing, you know?

Jeff Mao

I think it’s still confusing to some people.

Marshall Allen

That’s why I tell you that you’d be saying, "What? What?" No, not so quiet so it made sense. So I absorbed it and to see what he was trying to do for me and the musicians and for the people with his music.

Jeff Mao

Is there a simple way to explain for somebody who’s not familiar with Sun Ra’s philosophies, is there a simple way to explain it?

Marshall Allen

Absolute discipline. It’s like life is, absolute discipline, you want to learn it’s not what you like or what you want, it’s what you get that’s for your well being. I needed some discipline, first thing I need is a certain type of discipline in order to get his music, interpret his music. That’s what I needed and I didn’t know it, that I didn’t have that, discipline. I was always guessing, you know.

Jeff Mao

“Spontaneous Simplicity” was the first song that you got a part on?

Marshall Allen

Yeah, just right for him, and I didn’t have no music, I’m just sitting up there playing.

Jeff Mao

Can we take a listen to a little bit of Sun Ra “Spontaneous Simplicity”?

(music: Sun Ra – “Spontaneous Simplicity” / applause)

Marshall Allen

See I was glued to music, to reading, reading, then correcting so… That I didn’t know what to do and I couldn’t plan on this, to tell me. So I’ve just been [listening] to my heart, to just feel and really listen to what the background was, to play that.

Jeff Mao

Was that you on flute? You were playing flute? Did you know the flute before working with Sun Ra? Did you know how to play the flute?

Marshall Allen

I had bought the flute earlier… I now went and got to really, really getting to it, you know? Yeah I [inaudible], you know. All of that fit in that because I was doing it in the spirit of things, you see: simplicity.

Jeff Mao

I mean, but from your ears, you identified it right away, Sun Ra’s music didn’t sound like other jazz artists at the time.

Marshall Allen

No, Sun Ra was a person that you’d come to him and he could analyze you. He was one of those natural leaders that analyze people and see their potential. He must have saw the potential in me or something, to tolerate my foolishness. I had a lot when I was young. Anyway, but I did what I said I was going to do, I stood my ground. The things I did not understand I absorbed it and I didn’t make no comments because I didn’t understand so most people when you don’t understand, you know. I learned that way and I learned through experience from that. I had to have some discipline, which I didn’t have.

Jeff Mao

Well the discipline thing is obviously a really big deal.

Marshall Allen

I had discipline from the army, marching, but I didn’t have no discipline for my own learning of creative things that he had. And I had to learn his discipline like I learned all the rest of them.

Jeff Mao

Now his, Sun Ra’s discipline is kind of legendary. What were these rehearsals like for the Arkestra?

Marshall Allen

… you like to do, is young people like to do, put it aside and that’s very hard, you know? You put it aside, music, music, music: Doing it for hours a day and that was it. If you play, play and play every day, you go out, he’d say, "Wait a minute, I got something,” find something. In other words, he’d keep you doing your youthful things, whatever it is, good or bad or indifferent, and, “Do this before you go.” But then if you don’t do it and went… if you’re doing it because you don’t want to, it take you a little longer so you don’t get where you’re supposed to be going. “I got to go somewhere,” see, so that’s the way he would do it. Put the insignificant aside and learn.

Jeff Mao

Were the rehearsals at this point the really long rehearsals that you read about? We’re talking how long?

Marshall Allen

24 hour rehearsal. We’d rehearse all day and he’d get up in the night and rehearse again.

Jeff Mao

So just continuous?

Marshall Allen

Oh, he’ll call you out of your bed, "Come down here and do this and do that." He was consistent.

Jeff Mao

Why do you think the musicians that Sun Ra brought into the Arkestra wanted this kind of discipline, wanted this type of regimen?

Marshall Allen

Those men said, Sun Ra said, "You cannot make a better world unless you lift the man out of the gutter," [makes hand movement]. Don’t matter what background you had, if you had talent, you know, you could put him in there and he’d give you his discipline. There were those things because he proved that one day. I seen him myself, guy was laying in the gutter drinking wine and we were coming in the club to rehearse. We went in to rehearse and when he come out, he got up out of the gutter and wiped his dirty hands on his dirty clothes and wanted to shake everybody’s hand cos the music got him out the gutter, because he said, "Oh, I never heard anything like that in my life." To make a better world, you see?

Jeff Mao

Yeah.

Marshall Allen

There you are. Play the music, make a better world. If you’re going to make a better world, you can’t leave anybody in the gutter. Got to lift them. You can do it through many things. I’m trying to do it through music, sound. (applause) Sound body, sound mind, that’s what I always thought. Sound body, sound mind. Do it through sound.

Jeff Mao

It’s pretty cool that actually we’re here in Montréal talking to you because Montréal actually played an important part in the band leaving Chicago and winding up someplace else.

Marshall Allen

Yeah, that was the first out of town gig I had. It was coming to Montréal in the ‘60s, I think it was the ‘60s, or ‘59 or ‘60s, somewhere in there. Yeah, that was the first out of town gig I had with the band. The band, we had a large 15-piece band but all the best musicians and all the ones that had been in the band long, they migrated to New York. They was going on their journey to outer space, with their journey. That left Sun Ra with only John Gilmore and myself, Ronnie Boykins, a singer, a drummer, and Walter Strickland played trumpet.

We had this gig in Montréal so we come up here to play in 1960-something. That’s the one I had a seat in, had a hot seat, I call it. Yeah, because I had to play all the parts right on it, but I did the best I could do.

Jeff Mao

What happened when you left Montréal? You guys were going to go...

Marshall Allen

We said, "We’ll stop in New York and see some of the fellas from the band and check New York out." On the way in, we got into New York and the taxi hit our car, which... they were in the wrong, of course. So we going to sue the taxi company, so in order to sue the taxi company, as we didn’t have transportation home. We took care of that, filed a claim and all that. Then now there, we stuck in New York. We said, “We got some money. We can go back home or we can get a place and wait for the repair to call,” with you know, the taxi company will pay for this car. What it was, we got a place and we started from nothing in New York. That’s how I got stuck in New York for 10 years (laughs).

I was like, “Oh well,” and wasn’t going to leave Sun Ra and we all stayed there and got a place up on the west side, 80 some odd street. Then we moved down to the Village because it was a little cheaper down there. We wasn’t doing too much work, but he begin to build a band from New York with the Heliocentric and all them guys. He built another band and we didn’t go back to Chicago.

Jeff Mao

How was the sound of the band changing once you got to New York?

Marshall Allen

He began to get all kinds of little instruments to play on, string instruments, bells, you name ‘em, he had it. We made all these different sounds. Whether you could play them or not, he’d have you playing it. If you could play one note, then you got a one note solo, string on the string or whatever. He give you time to practice. He’d give you the instrument and you play something on it. If you don’t know anything, that was good because you going to play really what you feel, you understand?

See, so in other words, it taught you something. When you’re playing what your heart say, you usually play something that you wouldn’t ordinarily do because your mind’s so square.

Jeff Mao

How do you get out of the square then?

Marshall Allen

That’s the way you get out of it. You do something that you don’t know right. You do the right thing that you didn’t intend to do. In other ways from here, everybody goes through it. You might know this, but something else happened. Now, if you’re playing for a speech everything’s wonderful. But it don’t go that way, you see? Just like it is now. It don’t go that way. Basically, you got an idea and you use, the imagination’s the magic carpet. Soar to distant lands, the clouds, you see. Now, he’d be saying and we’d be singing all those things, it never dawned on me, wait a minute, “If it’s a magic carpet, then I have to be the magic carpet,” you see?

Jeff Mao

Yeah.

Marshall Allen

I would put it to myself, all those things I didn’t understand, you see. Going to outer space, yeah, I can go. Put yourself and go. Sound. Sound. They have sound to destroy. Sound put you together. Sound tear you apart. I’m going to use it to put myself together.

Jeff Mao

Can you share some sound with us right now?

Marshall Allen

Sound. That’s the way I feel today. That’s the way every day I get up, I play the way I feel today. If I got a band, they got to play the way we feel today. We know what we felt yesterday because we played the music. We’ll take the same music and change it for today because today is not the same as yesterday.

Jeff Mao

Would you be willing to show us today how you feel?

Marshall Allen

I can show you now (applause). [Marshall gets up to his instrument] This is called an EVI, electronic valve instrument that they got different makes. This is a Steiner, one of the first ones made by Steiner. It’s an old model, but it’s not built very strong. It’s got some weak points in it, like back and forth, and they’re plastic. But anyway. Sound.

(music: Marshall Allen - Live Improvisation / applause)

That’s the way I feel today. Different instruments to express yourself. So, what I do and what I can recommend is, what sound?

(music: Marshall Allen & Danny Thompson - Live Improvisation / applause)

Jeff Mao

Marshall Allen. Mr. Danny Thompson, everybody (applause). Let’s get you a microphone.

Marshall Allen

To express upon a feeling, it’s done through feeling. If you feel and I feel, then we can create something at the moment. Tomorrow it’ll be different (laughs).

Jeff Mao

Thank you for sharing that with us. We were talking about just really around the time I guess not that far before you guys met, 1960s New York City.

Danny Thompson

‘67. ‘67.

Jeff Mao

Yeah. The sound of the Arkestra is getting more experimental. There’s this so-called "New Thing" going on, going by different names. Free jazz, avant-garde. Did you guys feel like you were a part of that? I know Sun Ra had very strong opinions about being included in that category.

Danny Thompson

Absolutely. We was in the movement. They was surrounding around Sun Ra really. It was coming in through him like this movement. We was down in the East Village. Everything was going on around this time. All the musicians, experimental musicians. They’re very good musicians, though. They was playing at the same time down there.

Jeff Mao

One of the main spots that I guess you guys took up residency, or really the main spot was a place called...

Danny Thompson

Slug’s. It was a club in New York on the Lower East Side on 3rd street. It was a raggedy looking club. There was sawdust on the floor. They had spittoons over there. It was really like a dive. You wouldn’t really want to go maybe, but they had the best music there. The best music ever. They had Archie Shepp. They had Giuseppi Logan. They had all the bands down there and Sun Ra was... We was playing down there, we were performing down there, but when I first saw Sun Ra I wasn’t in the band yet and I didn’t know what to expect. When I got there I knew it was going to be something different because on the stage there was Sun Ra, he was on piano, and there was five drummers and five bass players on the stage. I’m like, “Where the band going to sit?” The band was sitting down in front. Marshall Allen, John Gilmore, everybody was sitting in front, and then the audience.

They started off the set and I was sitting there, at 9 o’clock I was there. At 4 o’clock I was there. They hadn’t stopped. I’m like, “Oh, wow this is something else.” They played straight from 9:00 to 4:00. No breaks. It was like you going to a construction job. You know what I mean, you’re working, you’re working and working and working. When I got in the band... When I finally got in the band and I went down and played, the only way we would take breaks was, we had a drummer named Clifford Jarvis would take a half hour drum solo and you could kind of sneak off to the side. That was where the restroom was, but you know, it was hidden back there. You could smoke, call for a drink or something, but you better be back on stage when he stops. Otherwise Sun Ra said you butchered his music.

Jeff Mao

Now you weren’t living in the house on 3rd Street at that point?

Danny Thompson

No.

Jeff Mao

The Sun Palace, right? Now, you were living in the house on 3rd street. What was that environment like?

Marshall Allen

Well, we had to move from uptown, OK? We moved down to the Village where the action was. We was planning... And the coffee clubs and stuff. Coffee shop and all the little clubs down in the village. It wasn’t much money but you could eat and get coffee and go home. That’s a big thing back then. We played a lot of music and used a lot of musicians and things like that down there. That’s the way we survived in the Village. We’d begin to get the Village musicians and got... What’s the name of the spot?

Danny Thompson

Slug’s.

Marshall Allen

Yeah, Slug’s. Slug’s was every Monday. We had a gig every Monday.

Jeff Mao

The musicians would come out to hear you too because they were all off work, right?

Marshall Allen

All the musicians would go there and play, but we had this Monday spot. That was the only spot left was Monday and we would… And Sun Ra would go in and play from 9:00 to 4:00.

Jeff Mao

What was living with Sun Ra like?

Marshall Allen

Well, it’s like living at home when you’re young and you want to leave. You know, you’re living at home. You know what it’s like (laughs). It’s the same way. I’m living with Sun Ra and I got to abide by the house rules, you know? Like young people and their parents, you know? I could do things but I didn’t do too much because he was on my case. He kept me busy.

Jeff Mao

I mean we’ve all read I guess like, he had rules about drinking and smoking and relationships and stuff.

Marshall Allen

Well, you could do a lot of things if you... It wasn’t something so different. What was so different about it was more discipline and more practice and more leaving everything, the little things in life that we like, out. That hurts, especially when you’re younger, you know? It hurts to leave out the... “Oh, I can’t go drinking tonight in the club because I got to rehearse.” Or, "I can’t do something else,” and the other thing. It’s like family. If you got strict parents, everybody knows what it’s like. They get in your way sometime when you want to do something. They give you some discipline and I had to take all of that whether I liked it or not. Found out it was better for me because I stayed out of a lot of other troubles and things.

Jeff Mao

You guys had a lot... The Arkestra had a lot of admirers obviously in terms of your fellow musicians, but I mean did... You said this yesterday when we were talking, how when you first saw the Arkestra you were like, “Woah, what’s going on with these guys?”

Danny Thompson

When I first saw the Arkestra was at Olatunji Center for African Culture and [John] Coltrane was playing and I wanted to go see Coltrane. When I got there I saw these people over in the corner. It wasn’t like I was scared they were going to beat me up or nothing like that, it was like, “Oh no, that’s a different vibe. I’m not going over there.” I’d never seen nobody like that. I was like, “No, I’m not going over there.” Marshall, after the concert, Marshall said, “Danny, come here.” I went over there and everybody was fine. It was like, "Oh wow, hey! Hey! Hey Danny! Hey!" It was so nice. I said, “shooo.” I didn’t know what was going to happen.

Jeff Mao

At that point already the outfits on stage and stuff were getting more elaborate I would imagine.

Danny Thompson

Sun Ra always had costumes. Sun Ra was, “This band is a show band.” He grew up with a show band and we would show band everything. We had costumes, uniforms, and we put on a different outfit for every different city. He had a different name for the band. Sometimes it would be Sun Ra and the Intergalactic Arkestra, Sun Ra and his Cosmic Arkestra, Sun Ra and his Transmolecularization Arkestra. There was a lot of names for the different concerts we was playing. We had different costumes. We always had costumes. Outer space costumes. Even in Chicago before I got in there they had costumes. We call them uniforms, but...

Marshall Allen

Match a uniform up to one’s personality. [inaudible] color. The ladies know about colors and things like that. They know that well. Today you put on the colors, your colors. You got your colors, you’re cool. He used lights. He used strobe lights. He used colors and the music and costumes. All of this is designed to bring the music out to you.

Danny Thompson

Even when we went to a hotel, Sun Ra had a thing when we’d go to a hotel. We playing all night, we might have drove to get there or flew to get there, we play the gig. We not even going to the hotel, we play, we tired. We get to the hotel and everybody would have to wait downstairs and whoever was the manager and Sun Ra would go up and check all the rooms out and see if the colors was right in the room for the musicians that was going to stay there. Now you can imagine if you... “Oh man, here we go again, we gotta...” One night Sun Ra was really tired and he said, “Well, just give out the rooms.” I said, “OK.” I gave out the rooms. The next morning everybody was complaining. “Man that room, I didn’t like that room. I didn’t like that room. This room, the color was wrong.” Everything was wrong. It worked. We do that now even still.

Jeff Mao

He was on to something then.

Danny Thompson

Yeah, he was on to something. Have you ever stayed in a hotel room where something’s not right and you want to move, but it’s too late? You ever stayed in a hotel room that you didn’t like? Yeah. Check the room out first. If it doesn’t vibe with you, it doesn’t feel your vibrations, try to get another one (laughs).

Jeff Mao

Check the color, yeah.

Danny Thompson

Yeah.

Jeff Mao

I mean in the ’60s with this new thing happening it was very tied to activism, black nationalism. Sun Ra’s philosophies obviously had different components of that as a part of it, but how much of that informed what you guys did as members of the Arkestra?

Marshall Allen

If we can’t be nowhere here, why can’t we go somewhere there? Simple, I think. Why can’t we go somewhere there? He put all his poetry sounds and things into lyrics for songs. He’d say, “Greetings from the century of 21.” [singing] Those are the 25 first century. Back in the ’50s, he said, “This music’s not for today. It’s for the 21st century.” I said, “Oh, that’s 50-something years from now. Oh my gosh, I’ll be too old to even play.” In my head, if I tell you 50 years from now, you’ll say “Oh my gosh, I’ll be 60 or something.”

Danny Thompson

Sun Ra had a certain thing he always said. He said, “Fellas, years from now, you’ll still be playing my kindergarten stuff. Just be learning my kindergarten stuff.” I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about. One day at rehearsal, not too long ago, Marshall brought out a... I don’t know where he got it from, it was some piece of music that was almost... it was really old. Marshall said, “This, Sun Ra wrote this.” We tried to play it. It was very hard. I think we finally got it but it took us a long time to get it.

Jeff Mao

I’d like to show the first video, if possible, just as an example of how far things were going for you guys. This is actually, I believe, from 1970, in a concert in West Berlin and it’s the Sun Ra Arkestra performing “Shadow World.”

(video: Sun Ra and his Arkestra – “Shadow World (Live in Berlin)” / applause)

Danny Thompson

That was in East Berlin. When it was East Berlin, when they had the wall up, after that, not too long after that, they tore the wall down. The people there at the auditorium was told, “Don’t clap. Don’t play so loud.” We went crazy and they went crazy. It was good.

Jeff Mao

How do you rehearse that?

Marshall Allen

It’s spontaneous.

Danny Thompson

Sun Ra, his rehearsals was, something. In Philadelphia we rehearsed all day. We’d have dinner. He cooked dinner. Rehearse all night. In all times of the night, day and night. Like Marshall was saying, “If we want to go somewhere...” He stayed downstairs and he very rarely slept. He had cat naps. He’d wake up… like if you go get dressed, you’re coming downstairs, it’s Friday night, you’re ready to sneak out, go out and have a good time. “Oh Danny can you come here? I got a tune I want you to play!” I said, “The night is gone!” (laughs) About three hours later you... but it was worth it. I can’t deny that it was worth it.

Jeff Mao

Now by that point you had moved to Philly, you had relocated from New York to Philly.

Danny Thompson

Right.

Jeff Mao

How did the house on Morton Street happen?

Marshall Allen

Morton Street… I was in New York so things was getting different in New York. We had to get out of there because Sun Ra needed a place much quieter for studying and more space because it was kind of crowded up there where we was in New York.

Anyway, my father had two, three houses so he kind of lured me down to come down to stay with... “I’ll give you a house. Come on down. Come on down.” So I’d go down there and there’s Morton Street. I said, “Oh yeah Sun Ra would like this.” Everybody have a room and we got enough space to rehearse and everything. Instead of that little room we had in New York. So I come down, hammer and nail, and fix the thing, clean the house so we could move in. That’s how Sun Ra got the house. My Papa said, “It’s your house.” I said, “No I don’t want it, sell it to Sun Ra 'cause he needs a place to work.” Which he did. So he just sold his place to Sun Ra for a dollar. That took the responsibility off of me, I thought. I didn’t want to be bothered with all of that. Give it to Sun Ra. He needs it. That’s the way he got the house and it’s still in his name but I live there rent free and all of that. It was good.

Jeff Mao

How many members of the Arkestra were living in the house in Philly?

Danny Thompson

At one time, about maybe five or six. It was two upstairs...

Marshall Allen

Three upstairs.

Danny Thompson

Three upstairs, two in the second floor and we had a lot of people that would come...

Marshall Allen

Three in the center.

Danny Thompson

…That would come to rehearsal or come from different cities. Musicians would come from different cities.

Marshall Allen

Two, three, [inaudible].

Danny Thompson

They would stay there.

Marshall Allen

When they get up they get in.

Danny Thompson

It was a lot of people there. Sun Ra didn’t move like regular people. It took him a year to move. The reason I know because Pat Patrick gave me the keys to the station wagon and I was gung ho and said, “Yeah, I’ll drive. Yeah!” “Can you drive?” “Yeah man I can drive!”

I’ve been driver ever since. I had to drive everyday, back and forth, to New York. Sun Ra would... he moved for about a year. He was moving in. He was getting things right. I’m still the driver now with the band. Some things never change, so be careful when you say, “Yeah! I can do that!” You might be doing it for the rest of your life (laughs).

Jeff Mao

Danny, you were also... along this whole time the records are being released independently, self pressed, self released through Saturn, El Saturn, I guess is the name of the label. At certain points you were in charge of that as well, as far as the distribution of it.

Danny Thompson

We was doing a lot of... we were pressing our own records and first it was done in Chicago and then Sun Ra... we started doing it in Philadelphia. We had the house there so we could press our own records. There was a pressing plant in Philadelphia and there’s one in New York. We used different ones. This is when they had vinyl. We used to press the records and then we’d wait for the labels to come from Chicago. Then we said we’re going to make some different kind of labels and records. We glued these labels on. We may have had some labels printed up and we’d cut them out and we’d glue them on the records downstairs. That got too much, the gluing, in your system.

We figured we’re going to go modern so we had the paste you pull off and then paste on. We had the record labels and then we get the records pressed. There was blank labels and then we have the covers. We’re doing the covers. We’d put different things on the cover and different paintings. It was all paint on the covers. If you have a hand-painted cover of the Sun Ra album, you’ve got a classic. I’m telling you because we did each one different and most got… We did them. We painted different things. You got something that nobody else has. Someone told me he had $2000 from selling one. I’m like, “Man what did I miss out on?” We did the records then we distributed them ourself. I had some distributors I’d go to. So say you lived in Boston and you had a record company and you wanted some extra amount of records. At that time... it was not too many problems at the airports. I would go to the airport with these albums and take them to Boston, meet the guy at the airport, get our money, and fly back. Same day and boom. Europe. I did it in Europe. We had our record company going on then.

Jeff Mao

That’s why these records are impossible to find now, at least the original ones.

Danny Thompson

Yeah.

Jeff Mao

But at the same time the thing that’s so cool is that while these albums were really hard to find when they came out, now people can hear them because everybody has this appreciation for the legacy of the Arkestra.

In that video, we saw a few different people, John Gilmore, there’s been other key members of the Arkestra... I’m just really interested to know how you guys were able to maintain the Arkestra because it sounds like it was a struggle financially. It was obviously amazing experiences, but was it difficult to not want to go and do other things and pursue other opportunities as a musician?

Marshall Allen

Yes it was difficult because you don’t make no money, and you don’t spend no money, and you got a place to stay. It’s just like I was saying: Being at home with your parents, you might not have no money, but you got a place to stay and a place you can eat, and like that, but that’s not enough, really, down the line. So I had to go out and find some work so I could have a little money. Then, don’t miss rehearsals, so he fixed the rehearsals. I go out, if I work eight hours, I’d come and rehearse two, three, or four hours before I’d go to bed, see? That was it. Didn’t have no money, still don’t have none, so I go to work and make money. Then we’d play a job and it still was not enough money because Sun Ra would have 15, 16, 20 people on the bandstand so it wasn’t much money going around to the individuals, but that’s the way it was so I’d go get me a job. I always had me a little extra job on the side.

Danny Thompson

Yeah, me too. It’s funny. We was on a good paying job, right, “Oh, we got a good paying job.” You see, here comes a cast of thousands, “Where these guys coming from?” Everybody is showing up. It went from 10 to 25 on the stage. I’m like, “Come on man!”

Marshall Allen

Sun Ra wanted to teach the musicians to do business themselves, be businessmen, you understand, businessmen. That way, all the money that goes somewhere else can come to you if you mind the business. It taught us to do the things ourselves and not depend on other people.

Danny Thompson

One thing about Sun Ra, and this was in the ’70s and the ’80s, we was going to Europe with 25 pieces for like seven months, six months, eight months at a time. It’s not easy now, as far as financially, you going with 25 people, sometimes 30 people, we’re going out of the country with. Try to do that. It’s not easy. We managed to survive and come back with a little something. Wouldn’t get rich, but got something.

Jeff Mao

One of the things musically, I think, as you come out of these more experimental eras, although it’s been maintained over the entire course of the Arkestra, is this balance between traditional sounds and sounds that push the boundaries. You maintain it now, even. It’s really reverential to jazz’s history and the music’s history, but also, very progressive still. I just wonder how you maintain that?

Marshall Allen

I tell you one thing, Sun Ra said there was some great musicians that came before us and good-sounding bands and good musicians, so the kind of band we have to have is a show band. They had dancers, comedians with the bands those days, also Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, you can go name all these bands. He said, “When we play for the people, we’ll give them the history of all those who have been forgotten in the new age,” so we’d go back from 1920s and play music from all of those bands on up to today. In the meantime, the bebop era, come in and play, got music from there. What we do when we play, if we have enough time, we’ll play a little bit from the old days. The musicians give a treasure of music to the world for all of us. They were good musicians and they gave us beautiful music, so we should honor them by playing it. Sun Ra honored all the musicians before us, honored their music up until today. That’s the way our band... you get a little bit of history. You get a little bit of the old days and right on up to time. Our music moved step to step, step to step, with different ideas, because you had all these bands with different sounds and different things like Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Fletcher Henderson, you got hundreds of bands, so we honor them. We got music from all of these bands. When you’re playing their music, you play it as if you were there, then. Play it like them to honor them.

That’s why we have a show band where you dance and you clown and you speak, you do everything instead of just sitting there playing your horn and sitting. He had a show band where we used colors, dancers, comedians and everything, lights, strobe lights and things.

Danny Thompson

Marshall was saying this earlier, when we play, we want to play happiness, because there’s so much stuff going on in this world today that’s terrible, all this crazy. The people need some happiness, at least some happiness, a ray of hope and happiness that everything’s gonna be all right eventually. We like to project happiness.

Marshall Allen

Sometimes you hear all these things you don’t want to hear, but you need. Your ear is like a harp and you got strings in it, I guess, down in there. You hear a lot of stuff, and if you play on a lot of stuff and this you’ll wear it down. Then up here, the only time you hear something up there is something you can’t recognize. If you hear [click sound] that’s a very different sound. The ear’s like a harp, you play on the strings, you want to play, play, play, play, play and then right there, right there, right there, right there, you wear it out.

So you got to play [whirring sound], all the different sounds, and the more sounds that you hear that you don’t recognize, it's better for you in life because the universe got more than that, you see, strange sounds. We use those sounds. That’s why we play space music or avant-garde, call it what you like, but it’s going beyond. Our foundation is already set, it’s going beyond the foundation. And it’s going from here down to there, to there, to there, to there... spiral.

Jeff Mao

May of 1993, Sun Ra left this planet. What do you remember about that experience, of Sun Ra leaving the planet?

Marshall Allen

Yeah he said trans-molecular. Now, who am I to say he didn’t when he said he did? Then I went to myself, “Well, you can believe it or not.” Though it’s what he said. There you go. I’m still at it. I don’t know. You know.

Danny Thompson

I’ve seen Sun Ra come to me in some visions, and it wasn’t like I was asleep, and I wasn’t dreaming. It was a vision, and he came to me, and he told me some things. He only stays two minutes. Like a minute, or something, and he was gone.

He’s come to me, and so I said, “Maybe I’m doing something alright.” He was a very... You ever been with somebody that you take for granted maybe at a certain time. Then later on in years, “Oh how happy was this cat?” Like, “Damn this guy was something. He was a genius.”

He told us that this is a creator’s band. This band is the creator’s band. The creator puts in who he wants, takes out who he wants, and puts back in who he wants. Sometimes some guys show up they in the band. We don’t know where they come from, or why they there, but they in the band. Then some guys got to leave. The creator wanted them out for a minute, you know? Figure out another band for a minute. It’s frustrating in a sense, because you were used to rehearsing with a certain amount of people. Certain people. You get a ton of sound. Get tight, and here comes somebody else. Now you got to go over this again, and do that, and keep doing that. It’s difficult. I have to get Marshall credit. He’s good at it.

Marshall Allen

I’m a Gemini, so you can take it from there. Yeah, I’m a Gemini like Sun Ra. He’s a Gemini, but I’m playing music all these years. What I’m playing music for? I mean you know really. You talk say, “What am I doing this for?” I finally figured out. They say music will make you cry, music will make you happy, music is a very emotional thing. It does many things for you. Music can heal you, and I guess it can heal you too.

I said well, “Imma use music for my wellbeing.” That’s the only way I’m doing it. Now, if I have wellbeing I don’t care if I got a dollar or not. That stuff don’t bother me. Your wellbeing does though, so I made up my mind. I said, “Yeah I’m going to continue Sun Ra’s music, and some of these ideas I thought was a dream or something.” Try to make it into reality.

That’s what I’m doing now. I’m still playing the music for my wellbeing, so I can give you something too. I’m not playing for just money, or fame. None of that. I’m playing for my wellbeing, because if I wasn’t wellbeing I wouldn’t play no music. I wouldn’t have no desire to play. I have a desire to fulfill the mission that I set out to do.

Danny Thompson

If you was trying to get money, and playing for money with this band you in the wrong band. You aren’t going to make it. No, you better do something else. No, you aren’t making it.

Marshall Allen

If you playing for your wellbeing, come, welcome.

Danny Thompson

We had a hundred pieces. Sun Ra had a hundred pieces twice, in New York. Twice, a hundred-piece band. We got guys from, musicians from all over. They played for... I had to pay everybody at one of the gigs. I had a list. I was just sitting there. “Here’s your $5, here’s your $5, here’s $5,” and everybody’s, “Thank you, thank you.” These are like well paid musicians. “Thank you, thank you,” but it was the music. Sun Ra had a talent for bringing out something that you didn’t even know you had inside you. When you found it out and you wondered, “How did I play that? How did that come out?” You hear it, maybe hear it back say, [exhale].

I know a musician named Von Freeman from Chicago. They asked him, “How’s he play this?” He said, “The Creator just put it in my horn, and he plays me. I don’t know how I did that.” That’s like this Sun Ra band was like this. Sun Ra’s music’s like that. You wonder how... “I wish I could do that.” Then you try to do it again, and you aren’t going to do it. Maybe something else you can do, but it’s a vibration that the creator just takes over your horn. He wraps his wings around you, and he plays your horn. You wonder, “How did I play that?” It wasn’t you. Something, it was another being grabbing your horn.

Jeff Mao

I mean you just mentioned continuing the mission. How much do you feel an obligation to pass along the philosophies as well as the music to the new musicians who might join the Arkestra? Is it for them to figure out, or is it something that you also share with them?

Marshall Allen

When you go to see a band, or you see a show, or whatever. Up to individuals seeking different things from what they go see, right? That’s a learned experience in life anyway. It’s the same way. You want to come here, and you want to see what we saying. I’m saying if you do, you understand, you get what you go for.

Now each person got a different thing they go for, you see. By playing music like this [hand movement] a spiral never ending. I can give all you something, because down in this spiral comes your turn. You see? That’s the way it is, and nothing is done like [bap bap]. It’s not like that. It’s always when your turn, as an individual, comes. It goes, and it never, it goes to [hand movement].

Jeff Mao

I think it’s going to be these guys' turn to ask a few questions, but before that I just want to say, join me in thanking Danny and Marshall (applause). Do we have questions from participants only?

Audience Member

Hello, how are you?

Danny Thompson

Hi.

Audience Member

Hi, I wanted to know where were you guys coming from before you entered the band? What music were you listening to? What was your background?

Marshall Allen

Me? Oh I was a... Wait a minute. I was born in 1924, OK? Now I come up with the old bands until I went to the army. Then I got in the band in the army. I played music, jazz music, march music, and whatever. In the army for 10 years. Then after that I got a discharge, and I went to Paris to study with Monsieur Delécluse. That’s a clarinetist, OK? To upgrade my technique, and ideas. Then after that the people from James Moody, Coleman Hawkins – all the great musicians was migrated to Paris. In the days of 1949, ’47, ’48, ’49 everybody was in Paris. So musicians from all over the world had migrated to Paris so I was there at that time when all those good musicians would encourage me and help me too. So I found Sun Ra, I found my place in space. But before then I would play with the march band, I’d play with the Irish, I’d play with the Arab, I’d play with the English, I’d play… now all these different… played in German band, I played in mountain band, I played in hillbilly band, I played all this music because it’s dealing with sound. I’m not prejudiced toward what is. So that way it was for my learning experience. And then when I thought I knew everything I got with Sun Ra and I see I don’t. So I’m not saying I know everything now, I’m still learning. But that’s what I was doing before then. I’ll play a little classical, I was doing all the things that… to get experience.

Jeff Mao

You played with James Moody too, right? Marshall?

Marshall Allen

I played with the blues band. I played with everybody.

Danny Thompson

He said, “Did you play with James Moody?”

Marshall Allen

Yeah. Don Byers. I played [inaudible]. They all… because I was a young player, inexperienced, too much, but I had some experience. But playing with the professionals was like, “Hey.” Take you under your wings and guide you and help me. So I do that when I perfect something, I take those, to perfect and help them. I do it today because it was done to me and I appreciate that, I know I wouldn’t have been where I been had it… wasn’t for all those people, professionals, helping. Helping me along the way when I was young.

Audience Member

Thanks.

Danny Thompson

I had a… I was in… I grew up in the Motown era but I always liked jazz I had a family who… One who had a motel and a lot of famous musicians would come there and stay and not knowing who they were, I looked back on it and I’m like, "Wow." Right there with Dinah Washington or Ella Fitzgerald, I seen a lot of people and didn’t know it until I got older. Stuff Smith and all, I knew he was the nice man out in back, I didn’t know he was a famous virtuoso on the violin, I had no idea. So I grew up in the Motown but I like jazz, and I had an Aunt that I liked… I really have to give her credit because she always played us Fletcher Henderson records, Count Basie, Duke Ellington so I grew up around that, and I liked big bands because in the big band… quartet you can play, do your thing. But in big band, everybody’s got to sound together. You have to be with the sax section or whatever section you’re with. Gotta sound like one man.

Audience Member

Thanks.

Audience Member

So I had a question too, you talked a little bit about it but… how the rehearsals went down. So you got a piece of melody and that was something that everyone knew and then you sort of improvised on that or how did it go?

Danny Thompson

Sun Ra would tailor make the music for you. So he’d tailor make an arrangement for your personality and it’s funny because nobody else could really play it like you played it once you got it together. So he would tailor make music. So sometime we’d be… it’d be frustrating because we got maybe 15 arrangements on one song. Say the guy’s gone he’ll tailor make another part. Now… “Oh, boy here we go again,” but it got you kinda ready for that, but Sun Ra was famous, he’d rather you rehearse… not miss a rehearsal. You can miss the gig but don’t miss the rehearsal. He was really bad… That was a no-no. I mean, I’ll tell you one time. For some reason, for two weeks the whole band we didn’t rehearse, I don’t know why somebody was going here, somebody was going here. So we were playing at this club called Bottom Line in New York. Sun Ra never said nothing. We was like, “I don’t know what’s going on.” So the first set, everything he played was 100 miles an hour. You understand what I mean? It was fast. Like if it’s [imitates sound]. By the time of the end of the show, for the first set, we came off stage, everybody was blowing [breathes]. And he said, “Yeah, I bet you won’t miss one of my rehearsals again.” (laughs) And he really purposely… He started everything off nice and… Fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, fast. And the fast tunes were faster. And it was difficult, so we got the message.

Audience Member

Thank you.

Marshall Allen

So when you miss a rehearsal you can’t play in the band, you can’t play in it no more. He would change it. So when you get there, and you think you got it because you were there yesterday, today, you’re in the wrong place. Somebody else got your part or something similar.

Jeff Mao

How else would he discipline the band? If you did something wrong, there was something called jail, right?

Danny Thompson

Well you was in the Ra jail but you didn’t want to get in the Ra jail, believe me. I been in there a couple of times, you don’t want to be in the Ra jail. It ain’t pretty. But he was… sometimes if it was really bad you really did something bad, he would embarrass you on stage. We’d be playing in front of an audience. I mean we’re… Actually performance and somebody will say… He’ll say, “Wait a minute!” He said, “World, I have the world’s greatest guitar player,” or something like whatever instrument you were playing. So, and mention your name. He said, “No discipline whatsoever.” And you sitting there, "Oh shoot these people know my name for this.” So it was a lot of different things but you didn’t want to get in the Ra jail. Because I was the manager one time and if you really did something bad we’d have to send you… We’d send you back from Europe, wherever we was and you’d get the coffee and cognac. The royal treatment… It was called the royal treatment.

So the royal treatment consisted of you going to a separate hotel from the rest of the band. It’s a nice hotel, you’re staying in a different hotel. You’re not playing on the gig, we playing the gig the next morning, I come there and I take you to the airport, I pay you, I pay you for the whole tour, I give you coffee and cognac and you’re gone. That was the royal treatment, so you didn’t want the royal treatment either. It wasn’t good. You see me, “You want some coffee and cognac?” “No, no, no, no, no, no!”

Jeff Mao

Anyone else with a question?

Danny Thompson

You got no questions? Come on! There you go.

Audience Member

I just wanted to ask about a very important member later on and her influence on you guys and on Sun Ra and then kind of the effect of her passing, speaking about June Tyson of course. Like what she meant to you guys… just I hear her voice and when she sings it’s so powerful I only wish could’ve seen her perform, so I would like some insight.

Danny Thompson

June was something else. June lived in Harlem and her husband was the manager at the time, Richard Wilkinson, and they lived in… and she had two children. They lived in the projects in Harlem and sometimes we… coming in New York maybe staying a week, playing a week at some club everybody stayed at June’s house. It’s a two-bedroom apartment and it’s like 15 guys and her family. Who does that?

Marshall Allen

I know one thing, I had the chair in the kitchen on the left, by the window (laughs). That was my spot.

Danny Thompson

I waited the weekend ’til I get the chair on the right in the kitchen because she’d always cook pancakes for us. She said, “I know your mother told me you like pancakes,” and she would cook pancakes and I was right there to eat them. I would first eat... We would stay there for weeks at a time, and her children going to school. We see her children now, they’re grown. They have children themselves, and grandbabies. One of her daughters told her daughter that, “This an uncle. I had 15 uncles when growing up.”

Jeff Mao

Yeah. June’s voice, it’s kind of one of the really essential components to the sound.

(music: Sun Ra and his Arkestra ft. June Tyson – “Somebody Else’s World” / applause)

Danny Thompson

Angelic.

Jeff Mao

That was “Somebody Else’s World” featuring June Tyson. Why do you think that we’ve caught up, I guess, in a way, if this was music for the 21st century and there’s... When you guys do your gigs, there’s not just people who remember when you guys were doing stuff from back in the day. It’s all generations of people.

Danny Thompson

We have older audiences, and we have younger audiences. The young audience, maybe they haven’t heard us, but they just come right on in. It’s like you learn to walk. You don’t know how you learn to walk, but you’re walking. You listen to this music, and you listen to this music, and this music is carrying you somewhere where you want to be. You’re not sure why it’s going there, but you’re happy that you’re listening to it, and that’s how we are.

Jeff Mao

Anybody else with a question?

Audience Member

Through his music, like an album, he tried to show his ideas, like beyond Earth, like space, spaceships, or sometimes he’s really focused on like anti-nuclear war or something like that. Did he talk about... It’s kind of a ridiculous question, though, did he talk about some kind of stuff personally, very often to you guys?

Danny Thompson

About outer space? Yes. All the time. All the time.

Audience Member

Why was he so into... I’m really into that sci-fi stuff, too, so I’m really curious about his personal stuff.

Danny Thompson

He said he was from Saturn, and I believe it. Who am I to know? Did I see him when he came here? No. A lot of his art is outer space, so he was really ahead of his time, because, in Chicago, when he was in Chicago, this was in the ’50s, he was preaching in the, well not preaching, but he was talking in this park. He was telling people, “They’re going to put a man on the moon soon.” In Chicago, this was before they had the moon walk and everything. Then, they put a man on the moon. I see a lot of his things, they’re coming true.

Marshall Allen

He was a visionary. He told us about the future before it got there. It’s like any other porter, philosopher, tell you something about the future which, eventually, comes around.

Audience Member

Honestly, I can see that. He was the most radical futurist person in history, for me.

Danny Thompson

Radical. Futuristic.

Marshall Allen

Futurist, yeah. He left messages all over in the music. “Space age is here to stay, no place you can run away.”

Danny Thompson

“Space is a place.”

Marshall Allen

“You run to the rock that has your face, you rock right out, no hiding place.” You have to face the music.

Danny Thompson

“If we came from nowhere here, why can’t we go somewhere there.” That’s imagination as a magic carpet.

Marshall Allen

He got songs for all his sayings, philosophy or poems or whatever you want to call them. He’s got music for them. He’s got, “Enlightenment is my tomorrow.”

Danny Thompson

“My tomorrow. It has no planes of sorrow.”

Marshall Allen

He got a song for that. [singing]

Danny Thompson

Space fire sometimes is music. [sings] “The sound of joy is enlightenment. The space fire truth is enlightenment. Space fire, sometimes it’s music, strange mathematics, rhythmic equations.” (applause)

Marshall Allen

That way, you listen if I tell you a poem or read or something, and, then, to music, so he put all his songs into his poems or into his writings. He put the message in the song like it is when he’s, “I love my baby, come on home.” He play the blues, because he’s talking about the old lady or something, you know? It’s the same thing. He’s talking about other worlds, imagination, the magic carpet, going to other places in space is possible, believe it or not. I see they put the satellite up there. It went up and come back, or, well, it went up and stayed. Anyway, it’s a possibility, so they’re probing. Until they get around to getting the right thing, we can go to space and enjoy ourselves on another planet when you get used to destroying this one, because they’re sure trying.

Jeff Mao

One more over here.

Audience Member

Hi. I would like to ask... You mentioned the intense routine that you have daily, like the rehearsals and the house rules and what not. Do you ever feel like leaving the band at some point, or has it been like you stayed because of the bond and because of the music?

Danny Thompson

I became Sun Ra’s manager for like 10 years. It will burn you out. Really, I’m not going to lie. If everything went wrong, it was on you. If everything went right, it was on, “Sun Ra did it.” It was just so much. It was so much that I left for a while, but you never really leave. I took a vacation like 10 years.

Marshall Allen

Took a vacation.

Danny Thompson

I took a vacation for 10 years. Then, the creator wanted me back, so... I didn’t even have any instruments. I was visiting Marshall one day up at his house. There was a raggedy flute up there. I said, “This is horrible.” I played it. He said, “You got a sound off of that?” He went and got me a flute. Then I started getting back into band. Eventually I got a baritone and I started playing back again. It was so intense when we went in the places we went and the things you had to deal with, that it was hard. Sometimes we had to take a little vacation. A lot of guys took vacations.

Marshall Allen

You’ll find some people in the world like that. They seem like, work, work, work, work, work, work, work 24 hours a day. They keep busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. That’s the way Sun Ra was. He would take care of the managers. He would take care of the band. He would write all the music. He would do everything, “Phew.” That’s all I can say. I’m carrying on so I got enough just taking care of his music. That’s enough for me. I got managers, you take care of the managers. You take care of the other things. I’ll take care of just the music. I don’t want to burn myself out. I wonder how he did it so many years. He was boss of everything. I mean everything, and write the music, and rehearse. He did all these things. I can’t do it. No, it’s too much. I’m concentrating on one thing, it’s the music. Seeing that the music’s together.

Jeff Mao

Did you ever feel like you got to know him, I don’t want to say as a person because he was a being as he declared himself, but personality wise? We have an image of Sun Ra as being a mythic being, a lot of us.

Danny Thompson

He was a funny man. He’s funny. He’d come up with some stuff. He liked to laugh and joke. He was funny.

Jeff Mao

There’s obviously humor in the art as well.

Danny Thompson

Yeah, yeah. There was humor. There’s a lot of humor. He was really funny. He was like my father. I grew up without my father. Now I got one over here [points to Marshall]. I grew up without a father figure most likely. Sun Ra, he come in, fit in right. He was funny. He was really funny. He’d come up with some stuff. He liked a good joke. You know, he was like regular people, but then he had this other thing where he was outer space and outer worldly. Not too many people can do that, play both of those roles. He played them well.

Jeff Mao

What was the funniest thing that Sun Ra would do?

Danny Thompson

What was the funniest thing, man, Sun Ra would do? What was the funniest thing Sun Ra would do? There was so many.

Marshall Allen

He’d always do something funny.

Danny Thompson

I tell you, we was playing this song one night. We rehearsed this song from 10 o’clock in the morning. It was called “Darkness,” that was the name of the song, from 10 o’clock in the morning. He wrote the song. It’s about 9 o’clock, and we tired. We didn’t get the song right. You can feel when you didn’t have it right. It sounded good, but you know you didn’t have it right. He said… Well everybody was tired. We was tired. We was rehearsing this song all day. Then he said, “Let’s play it one more time fellas, see if we got it.” We played it. After we played it, you knew you played it 'cause the lights went out in our neighborhood, just in our neighborhood. He said, “All right, you played it fellas. We can go home now.” We played “Darkness.” It became dark.

Jeff Mao

Anybody else have a question?

Audience Member

About the technology, it seems like technology has had this impact on the music. How do you feel personally about it? Do the machines you use, let’s say the pedals of the instruments, do they speak to you? Do you speak to them? How do you feel about these instruments you use?

Danny Thompson

Sun Ra told me one time, I was playing a flute part, "That’s not it.” That’s how I was playing this, I’m playing this high note. He said, “No you gotta sound like the birds. You don’t sound like the birds.” “What the hell is he talking about?” The next day I was sitting out in front of the house. I heard these birds. They was chirping. I was like, “Oh, maybe that’s what he’s talking about.” I was trying to sound like the birds. I came in the next day, and I played it. He said, “Yeah, sound like the birds.” Sun Ra, technology was his thing. He had the first Moog. The Moog he had, the MiniMoog was, Robert Moog made it for him. There was no schematic, no nothing. He had this Moog. He made it and gave it to Sun Ra. Way back in Chicago Sun Ra was playing the first Clavioline and the first electronic piano, Harpsichord. Even Marshall had made an instrument called the morrow.

Marshall Allen

It was a flute on one end and a kind of clarinet, I don’t know. I turned it over the end and play the flute. Turn it over this way and play like a sub tone bass clarinet, sub tone. “Ooooh,” sound.

Danny Thompson

I played bassoon one time. I grabbed a French horn player’s mouthpiece. I was playing around, “I’m going to take this.” I stuck it on there. It fit on there. I played it on a record too. We called it the Neptunian Libflecto. It was bassoon with a French horn mouthpiece.

Audience Member

Hello. For example the song “That’s How I Feel” off Lanquidity is constantly sampled in modern music by hip-hop producers. How do you think he would feel about having his music sampled in other people’s productions?

Danny Thompson

Say that again please.

Audience Member

How would Sun Ra feel about his music being sampled by modern day producers?

Danny Thompson

Sun Ra, his music has been sampled by a lot of people, a lot of musicians. He’s been sampled, like the Digable Planets. They sampled Sun Ra’s music. There’s a lot of musicians out there sampled Sun Ra’s music.

Audience Member

Sure, but do you think he would generally approve?

Danny Thompson

Oh no, no. He would say, “Oh see. They got my stuff. They listening.” He would like that.

Audience Member
Hi.

Danny Thompson

Hi.

Audience Member

Hi. I have two questions. I think you’ve already touched on them a bit. I’m really interested in what you’re talking about, making sounds outside of the box. I just was wondering if you could talk a bit more about the sounds that the Arkestra is interested in making, and why, and how. I just love sound. I love the sounds you guys make. They blow my mind. I’m interested in that.

Marshall Allen

You got it “in the box” for instance. This here, mathematically correct. You see? [tapping heart]. Spirit, the balance. You understand? It’s the spirit. You go anywhere, any place in the universe. You can go ground up, down. You can’t go no further than the foundation that you have. You can build on top of it. When you plan whatever you do, or whether you’re in the box or not I can go over like this. It’s just like a dancer. [singing]

Audience Member

Yeah. Cool.

Marshall Allen

You can go do the same things. You have to feel it. It’s all about that. The more you exercise your feeling, it’ll be a better world. Playing the music for a better world, for a spirit world is a better world because you come together. It changes and it comes and it’s different. It’s not here that you dislike the laws. It’s like that. (applause) It’s not as complicated as you think, you see. If you feel something and it’s very different, it flows, you feel it, you probably...

Danny Thompson

Do it.

Marshall Allen

If you can think something, and you think it’s old tomorrow, it’s obsolete. If you feel it flows, you see? Make a better world, play a better music.

Jeff Mao

I think that’s as good a note to end on as any. Why don’t we say thanks once again to Mr. Marshall Allen and Danny Thompson. (applause)