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Tara Middleton

Tara Middleton is a vocalist and violinist whose expressive styling and enchanting stage presence have captivated audiences around the world. See Tara in action once and you'll never forget her. Tara began her music career studying violin at the age of five. She furthered her violin studies with Booker Rowe of the Philadelphia Orchestra. At the age of nine Tara began taking vocal lessons and soon found herself holding the microphone as a lead vocalist.

During her college years she was invited to personal tutorships with professionally acclaimed musicians such as the late jazz pianist Gerald Price, Philadelphia composer Dr. George Allen ,and Jazz Vocalist Patty Wackenhut, with whom she has studied voice, violin, flute jazz and performance. Tara co-founded The Foundations Singers with vocalist Janet McDonald — an African-oriented A Capella trio that garnered wide acclaim thru-out the tri-state folk music community. In 2007, with 100% fan funding, they recorded the CD Foundation Rocks, with guest percussionist William “Duke” Wilson. The CD’s first pressings immediately sold-out at their public performances.

She has worked as the featured vocalist for the ensemble JazGuardian since 1995; and also performed and recorded with the Afro-Cuban/Caribbean ensemble LaTumba, led by percussionist Robert “Rogi” Kenyatta. Tara has also recorded with Sonic Liberation Front, an African-Rhythmic avant-garde ensemble led by percussionist Kevin Diehl. Tara has recently recorded with BBC radio in 2014 and is featured on the 2015 newly released Sun Ra Arkestra international cd ”Babylon LIVE”.

Currently Tara is the lead vocalist and violinist for the Sun Ra Arkestra under the direction of Marshall Allen. Tara is the first woman to take the stage as a musician with the Arkestra in over twenty years. Tara has recently returned from a world tour with the Arkestra. At a time when female jazz singers have been arriving in waves, she is that rarity. An authentic artist who brings an irresistible blend of musicality and melodic insight to every song she sings. Tara focuses on the essential elements of her art, her voice is full of warmth and playing is filled with character.

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Album Review

Sun Ra Arkestra: Living Sky

Read "Living Sky" reviewed by Stefano Merighi


Mentre la Enterplanetary Koncepts continua a sfornare inediti della Sun Ra Arkestra, il roccioso Marshall Allen--che va per i 100 il prossimo anno...-riesce a concepire di tanto in tanto nuove produzioni. Dopo l'apprezzato Swirling, ecco Living Sky, inciso a Philadelphia nel 2021, ancora sotto lo choc del COVID. E appare proprio come una seduta di musica dolcemente terapeutica questa raccolta di brani tenui, riposanti, deliziosi. Il gruppo raduna 19 elementi, che sotto la guida di Allen imbastiscono una ...

10
Album Review

Sun Ra Arkestra directed by Marshall Allen: Living Sky

Read "Living Sky" reviewed by Mark Corroto


In 2022, Sun Ra has been gone nearly thirty years, but thanks to maestro Marshall Allen his Arkestra has survived. Allen had been a member of Sun Ra's band since the late 1950s and it has been under Allen's leadership since 1995. Fans that have enjoyed the Arkestra in concert certainly hoped for the band to record and it wasn't until the splendid Swirling (Strut) was released in 2020 that wish was fulfilled. The Marshall Allen-led the Arkestra's second offering, ...

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Album Review

Sun Ra Arkestra directed by Marshall Allen: Living Sky

Read "Living Sky" reviewed by Chris May


When Sun Ra aficionado and Omni Sound Records founder Ahmet Ulug reached out to Sun Ra Arkestra leader Marshall Allen to commission a new album from the band, he gave Allen a tight brief. Ulug said that he wanted something: “Spiritual and hypnotic... down tempo, melodic and grooving... Music that is accessible and healing." Even though the crisis the world endured in 2020 and 2021 called out for such music, Ulug's directions to the veteran sonic-warrior may seem ...

10
Album Review

Sun Ra Arkestra: Swirling

Read "Swirling" reviewed by Ian Patterson


Though Sun Ra departed Earth in 1993, his music has continued to thrive, first under the stewardship of John Gilmore and, since 1995, by the remarkable Marshall Allen who turned 96 in May 2020. A live Arkestra show still contains many of the elements that have been present since the 1950s and '60s-- color, pageantry and music boasting the entire history of jazz. There have also been some extraordinary continuities in the personnel of the band, with several members present ...

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Album Review

Sun Ra Arkestra: Swirling

Read "Swirling" reviewed by Chris May


Saturn moved into the ascendant in October 2020 when the Sun Ra Arkestra under the direction of alto saxophonist Marshall Allen released its first studio album in over twenty years. Swirling presents new arrangements of both well-known and more obscure Ra tunes, played by a fifteen-piece lineup which includes band veterans and relative newcomers. It is a welcome addition to the Arkestra's near seventy-year catalogue. When Ra passed in 1993, tenor saxophonist John Gilmore, an on-off band ...

5
Album Review

Sun Ra Arkestra: Seductive Fantasy

Read "Seductive Fantasy" reviewed by Ian Patterson


It seems entirely fitting that “Seductive Fantasy," the single from the Sun Ra Arkestra's first studio album in twenty years, should be a reworking of an old song, one that dates back over forty years to On Jupiter (El Saturn, 1979). With Sun Ra it was ever thus; old is new and new is old. The original “Seductive Fantasy" was a sprawling, seventeen-minute affair that morphed from loose groove and extended soloing into increasingly abstract, and almost arrhythmic terrain. Significantly ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Living Sky

Omni Sound
2022

buy

Dreams Of Future...

Creative Independent Artists
2021

buy

Seductive Fantasy

Strut Records
2020

buy

Swirling

Strut Records
2020

buy

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