{"id":10501,"date":"2025-05-22T22:46:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-23T03:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/?p=10501"},"modified":"2025-05-23T15:17:04","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T20:17:04","slug":"dm-hotep-marshall-allens-ghost-horizons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/dm-hotep-marshall-allens-ghost-horizons\/","title":{"rendered":"Resonances: A Conversation with DM Hotep on Marshall Allen’s Ghost Horizons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In a 2021 interview<\/a>, Henry Threadgill noted his belief that \u201c[Marshall Allen] should have the highest award that can be bestowed on any artist for performing one-nighters at age 97. They should make up an award for such a person\u2026 he\u2019s going unrecognized. It is a travesty. Can you imagine doing one-nighters at 97 years old? And then going out dancing afterward?… It\u2019s unbelievable that anyone could have that kind of stamina.\u201d But Allen\u2019s exceptionalism goes beyond merely vitality at over a century in age<\/a>. The saxophonist\u2019s brilliance comes instead through his music and its ability to uniquely combine the wisdom of his age with a youthful vibrancy. Even so, the march of time continues. Like any centenarian, the years have caught up to Allen to some extent, with his doctor restricting his ability to tour. And yet, things are not as they may appear. In the film Space is the Place<\/em> (1974), Sun Ra states, \u201cThe earth cannot move without music. The earth moves in a certain rhythm, a certain sound, a certain note. When the music stops, the earth will stop…\u201d Live in Philadelphia<\/em> (Otherly Love, 2025)  by Allen\u2019s Ghost Horizons, featuring DM Hotep, shows an artist still very much in motion, even as he remains in his home city. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While finally receiving some of the recognition long due to him – for one, he was recently named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts – such acclaim is often invariably tied to Allen\u2019s work with Sun Ra. Having been in the Man from Saturn\u2019s orbit since the 1950s, to some extent, such an emphasis makes sense.  Even more so when one considers that under his leadership since 1995, Allen has brought Ra\u2019s Arkestra to a cultural prominence it had never experienced before. Even so, however, Ra\u2019s work has been only part – albeit an important one – of Allen\u2019s artistry. Projects like the underrated Night Logic<\/em> (RogueArt, 2010) trio with Matthew Shipp and Joe Morris have highlighted Allen\u2019s music a bit further removed from Ra. But Live in Philadelphia<\/em> goes further than any other project has gone before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Live in Philadelphia<\/em> is an all too brief glimpse into Ars Nova Workshop\u2019s ongoing Ghost Horizons concert series curated by the Arkestra’s longtime guitarist DM Hotep. A creative outlet for Allen while stuck closer to home, the concerts surround him with not only younger collaborators – Immanuel Wilkins, James Brandon Lewis<\/a>, Brian Marsella<\/a>, and Luke Stewart<\/a> among them – but also long-established ones like William Parker<\/a>. The unifying force behind the selections is the significance the guest artists – like Allen himself- ascribe to improvisational ingenuity even as they express it in ways differently from the veteran saxophonist. Principally, Hotep selected those who would push Allen beyond his charted zone – quite a feat for someone who has spent a career in the sonic cosmos. From the starkly harsh\u00a0 \u201cBack to You\u201d with noise duo Wolf Eyes to the hypnotic Afrocuban rhythmic conversations with the Ade Ilu Lukumi Bat\u00e1 Ensemble on \u201cCosmic Dreamers, ode to Elegua,\u201d the experiment pays off well, not only mapping out new realms but showing the true depths of Allen\u2019s artistry.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Featuring several of Ra\u2019s compositions and other Arkestra members – Tara Middleton, Michael Ray, and Dave Davis – the double album does not ignore the legacy of Ra that lives inside Allen; honestly, how could you? But by pushing him to continue to innovate and explore, it reveals the saxophonist in his truest and most natural state, an artist imbued with fragments of Ra but ultimately his own creative force worthy of fuller acknowledgment. We sat down with DM Hotep to discuss the record, the Ghost Horizon series, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PostGenre: How did the Ghost Horizons series start? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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DM Hotep: The Arkestra was scheduled to go overseas, and Marshall couldn’t go. That was the initial impetus. Ghost Horizons began as a way to keep Marshall busy after he found out he wouldn’t be able to tour much anymore. I ended up contacting Mark Cristman with Ars Nova to ask him if there was anything Marshall could do while we were in Europe, and he suggested a performance. Initially, it was going to be only a one-off performance. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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