Jamaaladeen Tacuma and Marshall Allen
(HAMILTON, NJ) -- Grounds For Sculpture (GFS) and Third Way Cultural Alliance announce a special evening celebrating the power of creative freedom through music, art and conversation. "Creative Freedom: A Salon Experience featuring Marshall Allen, Salvador Jiménez-Flores and Jamaaladeen Tacuma," will take place on Saturday, July 18, 2026 from 7:00pm to 10:00pm.
Held at GFS, the 42-acre sculpture park located at 80 Sculptors Way in Hamilton, New Jersey, the evening will feature the legendary Marshall Allen from the American jazz group Sun Ra Arkestra, avant-garde bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma and interdisciplinary artist Salvador Jiménez-Flores.
The event will take place in the sculpture park's East Gallery, where a portion of the exhibition, "Salvador Jiménez-Flores: Raices & Resistencias," is on view.
Allen and Tacuma will debut new music from Allen's unreleased album "101: An Audio Odyssey" and will engage in a discussion with Jiménez-Flores on the imperative need for creative freedom while sharing personal stories behind the creation of the live music being performed and the artwork on view. Radio presenter and educator Nicole Sweeney of Philadelphia-based radio station WRTI will moderate the conversation.
Tickets for "Creative Freedom: A Salon Experience featuring Marshall Allen, Salvador Jiménez-Flores and Jamaaladeen Tacuma" are $60 for non-members, $50 for GFS members and $15 for students. Tickets are available for purchase online. Exclusive first copies of "101: An Audio Odyssey" are available with ticket purchase and will be on sale at the event. No cameras or recordings will be allowed.
When referring to the event, Jiménez-Flores shared, "Sun Ra inspires me because he showed that imagination can be a radical act of liberation. His way of blending myth, history and futurism resonates with my own Rasquache-Futuristic approach, where I use resourcefulness, cultural memory and hybrid forms to imagine new futures for marginalized communities. Like Sun Ra, I draw from ancestral stories to create work that defies borders and reclaims dignity, possibility and belonging. It will be an honor to be in conversation with Marshall Allen and chat about creative freedom and improvisation. The mural at GFS ["Memoria, Tierra, Trabajo: A Glimpse of the Semiquincentennial"] was a good example of that. I had some ideas for what the mural was going to be like but there were a lot of improvisations and reactions to our times."
About the Artists
Marshall Allen (b. 1924, Louisville, Kentucky) has a prolific music and entertainment career covering six decades. He is a globally known, Grammy nominated music recording artist, musician, writer and producer. Marshall joined the United States Army during WWII and was assigned to the 92nd Infantry Division becoming a member of the military's famous all Black Buffalo Soldier's Unit. He joined the military band to entertain thousands of brave dedicated troops. After serving his country, he enrolled and studied music at the famed Paris Conservatory School of Music in Paris, France. While touring Europe, Allen was featured at shows performing with popular music artists of the era. Upon returning to the United States, he worked with musicians, artists and producers in the local jazz music circuits of New York, Chicago and his home-base of Philadelphia. Allen joined the Sun Ra Arkestra in 1958, eventually led and directed the band at the passing of John Gilmore in 1995. Since then, he continues to perform and collaborate with various musicians, bands and artists.
Jazz, funk and avant-garde bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma showed interest in music at a young age, performing with organist Charles Earland in his teens. He joined Ornette Coleman's Prime Time at 19, and later work revealed him as a master improviser and showcased a more rhythmic, thumb-slapping funk approach. Tacuma's spirit of adventure across styles and genres includes collaborations with Bill Laswell, Anton Fier, Wolfgang Puschnig, Vernon Reid, Gerald Veasley and many more. His commitment to his home city of Philadelphia permeates his career and is marked with awards: The Marcus Garvey Foundation 50th Anniversary Award, The Pew Fellowship in the Arts 2011, The Uptown Theater Hall of Fame Award, The Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz Best Bassist 2017. He received The MacDowell Colony 2011, Headlands Center for the Arts 2012 and Civitella Ranieri 2014 residency fellowship. In 2018 he received the City of Philadelphia's Benny Golson Award, which includes a City proclamation and the Liberty Bell award — one of the highest honors from the City of Philadelphia. Since 2015, Tacuma presents the annual Outsiders Improvised & Creative Music Festival in Philadelphia and continues to tour, produce and record worldwide.
Salvador Jiménez-Flores (b. 1985, Jalisco, Mexico) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work is both playful and provocative, addressing critical issues of migration, cultural hybridity and resilience. Currently based in Chicago, where in addition to his career as an artist he is also a professor for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He centers his creative work on experiences as a bicultural immigrant. Jiménez-Flores' current exhibition, "Salvador Jiménez-Flores: Raices & Resistencias" is on view in the East Gallery and with two sculptures in the gardens, through Aug. 1, 2027. A recipient of many awards, fellowships, grants and residencies, Jiménez-Flores is a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grants, The New England Foundation for the Arts, Threewalls' RaD Lab+Outside the Walls Fellowship Grant and is a 2021 United States Artist Fellow. Jiménez-Flores is also an organizing member of the Instituto Gráfico de Chicago. His work has been exhibited at the National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago; the Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, Michigan; the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, Nebraska; and the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, among others.
Third Way Cultural Alliance, founded by Louis Marks, Fabian Brown and Joe Pignato, is dedicated to supporting intelligent contemporary music as art. Third Way is preserving the album as the primary format of musical expression and supporting socially conscious projects of power and meaning. Third Way has funded the creation of "101: An Audio Odyssey," which will be subsequently released on July 25 via Ropeadope Records.
Grounds For Sculpture (GFS) is a 42-acre not-for-profit sculpture park, arboretum and museum, founded by the late Seward Johnson. Featuring over 300 contemporary sculptures by renowned and emerging artists in a beckoning, ever-changing landscape, Grounds For Sculpture combines art and nature to surprise, inspire and engage visitors from all backgrounds in the artist's act of invention. Grounds For Sculpture offers exhibitions in six indoor galleries alongside experiential art, horticulture and wellness programs and its campus includes 25 artist studios and Johnson Atelier, which boasts state of the art sculpture fabrication and restoration capabilities. Located in Hamilton, New Jersey, Grounds For Sculpture is easily accessible from the New York City and Philadelphia metropolitan areas by public transit and is open year-round.
