Geri Allen, Brilliantly Expressive Pianist, Composer and Educator, Dies at 60 - Pittsburgh Jazz Network2024-03-28T11:28:14Zhttp://jazzburgher.ning.com/forum/topics/geri-allen-brilliantly-expressive-pianist-composer-and-educator-d?groupUrl=obituaries&commentId=1992552%3AComment%3A415656&x=1&feed=yes&xn_auth=noGeri Allen’s Spirit Fills Win…tag:jazzburgher.ning.com,2018-02-07:1992552:Comment:4249332018-02-07T08:34:46.793ZDr. Nelson Harrisonhttp://jazzburgher.ning.com/profile/NelsonHarrison
<h1>Geri Allen’s Spirit Fills Winter Jazzfest During All-Star Tribute</h1>
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<a href="http://downbeat.com/news/list/cat/new" style="text-transform: uppercase;">News,</a> <a href="http://downbeat.com/archives/artist/geri-allen">Geri Allen</a>, <a href="http://downbeat.com/archives/artist/terri-lyne-carrington">Terri Lyne Carrington</a>, <a href="http://downbeat.com/archives/artist/vijay-iyer">Vijay…</a></div>
<h1>Geri Allen’s Spirit Fills Winter Jazzfest During All-Star Tribute</h1>
<div class="kicker text-news"><p class="inline" style="color: #999; margin: 5px 0 3px 0;"></p>
<a href="http://downbeat.com/news/list/cat/new" style="text-transform: uppercase;">News,</a> <a href="http://downbeat.com/archives/artist/geri-allen">Geri Allen</a>, <a href="http://downbeat.com/archives/artist/terri-lyne-carrington">Terri Lyne Carrington</a>, <a href="http://downbeat.com/archives/artist/vijay-iyer">Vijay Iyer</a>, <a href="http://downbeat.com/archives/artist/kris-davis">Kris Davis</a>, <a href="http://downbeat.com/archives/artist/jack-dejohnette">Jack DeJohnette</a></div>
<p><span class="postinfo"><strong>By <a href="http://downbeat.com/site/author/allen-morrison">Allen Morrison</a></strong></span> <span class="text-primary"> I </span><span class="postinfo">Jan 22, 2018 2:11 PM</span></p>
<div class="pad-btm-sm pad-top-sm"><img src="http://downbeat.com/images/news/_full/GERIALLENcredit_Gulnara_Khamatova3.jpg" class="img-responsive" alt="Image"/>
Trumpeter Ingrid Jensen performs at the star-filled tribute to Geri Allen at Winter Jazzfest in New York. (Photo: Gulnara Khamatova)<br />
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<p>On the evening of Martin Luther King Day, Jan. 15, the New York City Winter Jazzfest hosted a splendid and heartfelt all-star tribute concert to Geri Allen, whose death from cancer last June at the age of 60 shocked and saddened the jazz world.</p>
<p>As revered as she was among musicians, Allen was underappreciated in her lifetime, despite having been deeply influential to a generation of young jazz players and a shining example of how jazz can embody a sense of spirituality, nobility and commitment to the human family. </p>
<p>She seems finally to be getting her due. Some of that might be our lamentable tendency to value artists more in retrospect than in the here and now. Some of it probably had to do with her gender in a male-dominated field.</p>
<p>Context is everything: Amid raw feelings and public outcry over racist sentiments coming from the highest office in the land, as well as the reinvigorated feminism inspired by the #MeToo movement, the stars seemed aligned to celebrate Allen and the virtues she represented.</p>
<p>Many of the jazz artists she inspired came to pay tribute to her music at The New School’s Tishman Auditorium for a program at which her friend and collaborator, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, served as musical director. As Vijay Iyer noted, expressing the sentiments of many: “Geri Allen was one of my greatest musical heroes. I’ve been obsessed with and influenced by her music for 30 years.”</p>
<p>Besides Carrington and Iyer, the participants included pianists Kris Davis, Helen Sung and Craig Taborn; bassists Kenny Davis, James Genus, Linda May Han Oh and Esperanza Spalding; singers Dee Dee Bridgewater and Lizz Wright; drummers Jaimeo Brown, Jack DeJohnette, Kassa Overall and Jeff “Tain” Watts; trumpeters Ingrid Jensen, Nicholas Payton and Wallace Roney Jr. (Allen’s son); saxophonists JD Allen, Ravi Coltrane and Tia Fuller; guitarists Paul Bollenback and Chris Sholar; percussionist Mino Cinelu; and tap dancer Maurice Chestnut. Activist/scholar Angela Davis and actor S. Epatha Merkerson served as co-emcees.</p>
<p>It began with a film of Allen playing “Flying Towards The Sound,” a rhapsody for solo piano, full of meditative rumblings and fiery arpeggios that ultimately resolve into a solemn, haunting nocturne. As the film’s music began to fade after a few minutes, Taborn, seated behind the hall’s Steinway grand, seamlessly took over—a metaphor for the continuity of Allen’s vision.</p>
<p>Brown performed his moving “Power Of God,” on which Allen had played piano, blending a sampled spiritual (by the Gee’s Bend Quilters Collective of rural Alabama) with jazz, deep blued riffing coming from Allen and Sholar.</p>
<p>Davis, citing Allen as a major advocate for women jazz players, introduced Carrington, Oh, Fuller and Davis to play Eric Dolphy’s frenetic “Miss Ann.” Dolphy was the subject of Allen’s master’s thesis in ethnomusicology.</p>
<p>Allen’s “Drummer’s Song” from 1987, featuring Iyer, was compelling with its hypnotic melody and insistent polyrhythms, especially an impassioned alto solo by Fuller; it was one of the evening’s early highlights. Frequent Allen collaborator Watts, accompanied by Bollenback and Genus, followed with a pair of his own songs. The trio was locked in but loose, tossing the beat around like a football.</p>
<p>The sublimely bluesy vocalist Wright followed, singing Allen’s ethereal version of the folk ballad “Barbara Allen,” backed by Sung, Carrington, Jensen, Cinelu and Kris Davis. Allen had rewritten the lyric, replacing the original’s tragic romantic drama with a spiritual quest, including the lines, “The greatest gift is the gift of love/And I have known its mercy.” Wright continued the spiritual theme on Allen’s “Timeless Portraits And Dreams.”</p>
<p>“RTG,” originally written for Allen’s trio with Ron Carter and Tony Williams, was played by the “TEN Trio” of Carrington, Spalding (on bass and vocals) and Payton (alternating between piano and trumpet). Easing into Allen’s “Unconditional Love” from the album <em>Twenty One</em>, Spalding conjured Allen’s presence as she intoned, “Trust the sound is Geri … in the presence … in the absence … the presence surrounds us.” It was almost like a jazz séance. She followed with a wailing, virtuoso vocal improvisation, singing with an almost reckless abandon that brought many in the audience to their feet.</p>
<p>There were more gifts to come: Coltrane performing Allen’s “Swamini,” written for his mother Alice; “Your Pure Self, Mother To Son,” written for and played by Allen’s son, trumpeter Roney; a medley of “Feed The Fire” and “Lover Man” from Allen’s tenure backing singer Betty Carter. The latter were sung by Bridgewater, backed by Kenny Davis, DeJohnette, Taborn, Jensen and Roney. “Lover Man” pointedly reprised a previous era of the avant garde, as Carter deconstructed the classic, fragmenting and elongating the beat and wringing maximum expression out of each note.</p>
<p>A recreation of Allen’s Timeline Band played Charlie Parker’s “Al-Leu-Cha,” with Overall, Kenny Davis, Chestnut and Sung substituting for Allen. In an evening of extraordinary pianists, no one seemed to embody the fire hydrant of creativity and technical perfection that was Geri Allen more than Sung.</p>
<p>When the finale arrived, it was a doozy: The entire cast assembled to play Marvin Gaye’s “Inner City Blues,” which Allen included on the Detroit tribute album, <em>Grand River Crossings</em>, featuring Taborn on piano and Iyer on Fender Rhodes; Genus and Oh on electric and acoustic bass, respectively; and DeJohnette and Carrington on drums. When the three great singers—Bridgewater, Spalding and Wright—combined their voices to sing the chorus, “Make me wanna holler,” both Geri and Marvin must have been smiling somewhere. <strong>DB</strong></p> Geri Allen Emerges as One of…tag:jazzburgher.ning.com,2017-10-02:1992552:Comment:4156562017-10-02T15:16:27.419ZDr. Nelson Harrisonhttp://jazzburgher.ning.com/profile/NelsonHarrison
<p style="text-align: center;"><font size="2"><font size="2"><font size="3"><font size="5">G<font size="4">eri <font size="5">A<font size="4">llen <font size="5">E<font size="4">merges as <font size="5">O<font size="4">ne of the <font size="5">M<font size="4">ost <font size="5">T<font size="4">alented,<br></br> and the <font size="5">M<font size="4">ost <font size="5">S<font size="4">cholarly, <font size="5">I<font size="4">nnovators in <font size="5">J…</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><font size="2"><font size="2"><font size="3"><font size="5">G<font size="4">eri <font size="5">A<font size="4">llen <font size="5">E<font size="4">merges as <font size="5">O<font size="4">ne of the <font size="5">M<font size="4">ost <font size="5">T<font size="4">alented,<br> and the <font size="5">M<font size="4">ost <font size="5">S<font size="4">cholarly, <font size="5">I<font size="4">nnovators in <font size="5">J<font size="4">azz.</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><font size="2"><font size="2"><font size="3"><font size="5"><font size="4"><font size="5"><font size="4"><font size="5"><font size="4"><font size="5"><font size="4"><font size="5"><font size="4"><font size="5"><font size="4"><font size="5"><font size="4"><font size="5"><font size="4"><font size="5"><font size="4"><font size="5"><font size="4"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/299219538?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/299219538?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" class="align-center" width="721"></a><br> <img src="http://www.pittmag.pitt.edu/jun95/images/dot.gif" alt="" vspace="50" hspace="0"> <font size="6"><b>ON A DIFFERENT NOTE</b><br> <font size="2"><b>WRITTEN BY LAURA SHEFLER</b></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p>
<hr width="100%" size="1" noshade>
<p><font size="2"><font size="2"><font size="3"><font size="5"><font size="4"><font size="5"><font size="4"><font size="5"><font size="4"><font size="6"><font size="2"><font size="6"><b>S</b><font size="4">tanding straight and alert, Geri Allen walks past the grand piano and steps up to where she belongs, at the front of the William Pitt Union Assembly Room. Everyone applauds, and you can guess who the piano players in the audience are -- the stylishly bald young man in the front row, perhaps, or the woman with her hair in thick braids, sitting by the aisle -- because they're the people who lean forward a little in their seats. Allen is one of the best young pianists in contemporary jazz, known for her daring, harmonically complex style of playing, and she has come here to the William Pitt Union to teach a master class as part of Pitt's 24th annual Jazz Seminar and Concert. As the applause fades, she adjusts the microphone that's clipped to her elegant, dusty-green blazer. Raising her head, she looks out over the crowd. She takes a deep breath and, in a moment of tension or shyness, she rubs her face with one hand before she speaks.</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p>
<p>You might expect Allen (Arts and Sciences '83), an international performer as well as a star on the New York music scene, to come across as slick and super-polished. Instead, she addresses her audience of music students and music fans with down-to-earth modesty. "Hello to everyone," she begins. She praises the talk that her fellow musician Ray Drummond has just given on the history of solo jazz bass: "That last presentation was really...." She breaks off, shaking her head in admiration. "I have to follow that now."</p>
<p>Allen's high regard for Drummond arises, in part, out of her recognition of the profoundly interdependent nature of jazz. This music, she knows, is a community enterprise. The following night, she and Drummond and the rest of the musicians in town for Pitt's jazz concert will play together intimately, as jazz musicians must, improvising from one another's rhythms and musical phrases.</p>
<p>When it comes to success, jazz musicians are not like rock stars, whose status grows out of their popularity with fans. Jazz artists like Allen depend on the support of other musicians, on the influence and guidance of their elders, on the respect of their peers. Thus, the expressions of appreciation that they make toward one another are both frequent and heartfelt.</p>
<p>But if this particular expression of appreciation comes wrapped up with an expression of nervousness, that's understandable, too. Pitt is a familiar place for Allen, but with this visit she has assumed an unfamiliar role. Allen first arrived at the University as a young, impressive talent -- promising, but unformed in many ways. Under the tutelage of music professor Nathan Davis, a world-class saxophonist and the force behind the Jazz Seminar and Concert, Allen earned a master's degree in ethnomusicology. All the while, she was spending long hours in the practice rooms of Pitt's Music Building, working out the details of the challenging, idiosyncratic piano style for which she is now known. She has attended Pitt's jazz seminars many times, but always as a student rather than a teacher. In the past years, she was one of the piano players in the audience, leaning forward in her seat. This time, she is instead at the center of attention, standing alone at the front of the room, with her shoulders pulled back and her feet planted wide. She is taking her place among people who were once her teachers. And even for someone as accomplished as Allen, this can be a daunting thing to do.</p>
<p>Still, Allen's desire to talk about the music carries her along. Soon, she is vividly describing the differences between the two great traditions in jazz piano. The "two-fisted" style, which originated just before the 1920s with Jelly Roll Morton, emphasized the active role of the left hand. "The piano would produce what the band was playing," Allen says of Morton's New Orleans ragtime bands. That meant that the pianist's left hand played chords similar to those of the bass and tuba in the rhythm section.</p>
<p>By contrast, in the modern piano style, pioneered during the 1920s and '30s by Pittsburgh-born Earl "Fatha" Hines, the left hand plays more sparsely. The modern style emphasizes instead the melodic improvisation of the right hand. "In my own style," Allen concludes, "I wanted to include my love and respect of both those ways of playing. With that in mind, I'd like to play something called 'In the Middle.'"</p>
<p>When Allen sits down and touches the keys, the piano players in the audience lean forward even further. In the front row, a woman wordlessly changes places with the man sitting next to her so that he can have a better view of Allen's hands.</p>
<p>Bass notes tumble from the piano, and Allen's right heel taps out a quick beat. The music presses forward, and you can hear some of the innovative qualities for which Allen is known: the quirky, insistent left-hand rhythms. The seductive lines of melody that unexpectedly dart or dive, that slide from trilling arpeggios into a funk beat.</p>
<p>Still, despite the dynamism of the music, there's something tense about Allen's body language. Her unbending posture contrasts with the flight of her hands over the keys. Occasionally, one of her shoulders gives a little swing.</p>
<p><font size="4">Then, halfway through this piece, with its intricate harmonies, its rich, rolling waves of sound, Geri Allen disappears into the music. The stiffness vanishes. Any lingering self-consciousness she might have had lets go. Her shoulders move up and down and her head tosses, and suddenly you can see that she makes music with her whole self and not just her hands.</font></p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/299220637?profile=original" target="_self"><font size="4"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/299220637?profile=original" class="align-center" width="384"></font></a></p>
<p><font size="+3"><b>G</b></font><b><font size="+2">ERI</font></b> <font size="+1">ALLEN WAS A teenager growing up in Detroit when she made the decision to pursue a jazz career -- a tender age, but not too soon to start. The jazz apprenticeship is long and arduous. The life of a "young" jazz musician begins early and lasts for decades.</font></p>
<p><font size="+1">Allen had been taking classical piano lessons since the age of seven. Of her classical piano teacher, Patricia Wilhelm, Allen recalls, "She was very open minded. She didn't discourage me from pursuing my other musical interests. She didn't <i>understand</i> them, but she didn't try to discourage me." Those interests included the Motown hits and other popular music of the era. In her teens, she spent a lot of time listening to songs on the radio and then trying to play them. Her interests also included jazz that she heard on records that her father played around the house.</font></p>
<p><font size="+1">Allen found her musical focus, however, while attending Cass Technical, a distinguished performing arts high school where the alumni included Donald Byrd, the trumpeter with the Jazz Messengers, and where Allen's classmates included keyboardist Greg Philliganes, who later played with Paul Simon.</font></p>
<p><font size="+1">"It was a very competitive environment," Allen remembers. It was in this high-powered, jazz-infused atmosphere that the idea "crystallized" that she wanted to spend her life playing this music. "Everything seemed clear," she says now. "I think I was certain of the love I had for the music -- and still do."</font></p>
<p><font size="+1">One turning point for her at Cass Technical was meeting the trumpeter Marcus Belgrave, a pillar of the Detroit jazz community, who took her on as a protÚgÚe, bringing her with him to play on gigs. He was the kind of formidable mentor who did not hesitate to confront a pupil's youthful lapses of appreciation for her musical heritage. "I remember telling Marcus, 'I don't like the blues,'" Allen recounts, with good humor, "and a rage came over him, and he shouted at me and made me cry. He said, 'How can you not love the blues? You are the blues.'"</font></p>
<p><font size="+1">From Detroit, Allen went to Howard University in Washington, DC, where she majored in jazz studies. Through a seminar at Howard, she met Pitt's Nathan Davis, who talked to her about the possibility of exploring jazz through a scholarly career.</font></p>
<p><font size="+1">After graduating, Allen set her sights on the uncertain task of establishing herself as a professional musician. "I was in New York trying to figure out: How was I going to make it? Was I ready?" she says. Davis, who had kept in touch, invited her to come to Pitt instead. The opportunity provided Allen with a way to stay immersed in music while finding respite from the pressures of the New York scene.</font></p>
<p><font size="+1">Here, she studied not only with Davis, but also with (the now-retired) professor J. H. Kwabena Nketia, one of the world's leading scholars of African music. "My focus was jazz," she says, "but I did have the opportunity to study music from all over the world." At Pitt, she encountered the rhythms of Africa and Brazil and Cuba and the rest of the Caribbean, rhythms that would later work their way into her jazz compositions. "It is really all one long continuum of African culture," she marvels. "When you look at all these different kinds of music, you can see how related they are, and yet how unique each one is."</font></p>
<p><font size="+1">During the years when she fine tuned her scholarly voice at Pitt, Allen was also searching for a distinctive musical voice.</font></p>
<p><font size="+1">Allen explains that, in her view, a jazz musician creates an individual style by absorbing and distilling the influence of other artists. Her own inspirations include Mary Lou Williams, a pianist whose six-decade career included long associations with Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman; Art Tatum, one of the later masters of the two-fisted tradition; and the modern pianists Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Herbie Nichols, Ahmad Jamal, and Herbie Hancock.</font></p>
<p><font size="+1">It was here at Pitt that she began in earnest to assess what she could learn from them about accuracy and harmony and rhythm and melody. It was here that she began to ask herself how she, as a composer, was going to reconcile her diverse musical loves, from boogie-woogie to bebop to Bach. And it was here, out of the hard work of listening and practicing and experimenting on the piano, that her own musical ideas began to take shape. "I did a lot of composing while I was in Pittsburgh," says Allen. "I developed my solo piano style there. And by the time I left, I had a concept of how I wanted to present my music."</font></p>
<p><font size="+1"><font size="+3"><b>F</b></font><b><font size="+2">OR</font></b> <font size="+1">GERI ALLEN, THE reward for the kind of good hard work she did at Pitt was, well, more hard work. After returning to New York, Allen has divided her energies among a remarkably diverse portfolio of projects. Over the years, she established herself as a sideperson with some of the best-known experimental jazz musicians, such as the saxophonists Oliver Lake and Dewey Redman. At the same time, she was also playing with M-Base, a collective of young musicians exploring interconnections among jazz, funk, and hip-hop music. She even played keyboards for a while with an early incarnation of the funk/heavy metal band Living Colour.</font></font></p>
<p><font size="+1"><font size="+1">In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Allen concentrated intently on her own music, focusing on composition, on solo performances, and on playing in small jazz groups. Two of her recent releases, <i>The Nurturer</i> (1991) and <i>Maroons</i> (1992), reunite her with her mentor Marcus Belgrave. <i>The Nurturer</i>, a tribute to Belgrave, also features the saxophonist Kenny Garrett, who played with the late Miles Davis, and the bassist Bob Hurst, who has worked for Branford Marsalis. She has also performed extensively with renowned trumpeter Wallace Roney, a schoolmate from her Howard University days.</font></font></p>
<p><font size="+1"><font size="+1">Her success has brought her new connections with some of the most famous jazz musicians in the world. In 1994, she toured with Ornette Coleman, the legendary saxophone innovator. She has also been accompanying the eminent jazz vocalist Betty Carter, and she headlines on Carter's <i>Feed the Fire</i>, recorded live in concert in London. (For this release, Allen composed the title track.)</font></font></p>
<p><font size="+1"><font size="+1">Allen's own most recent release, <i>Twenty One</i>, is a collaboration with the formidable bassist and the accomplished drummer whom she unfailingly refers to as "the great" Ron Carter and "the great" Tony Williams„jazz veterans whose distinguished careers, including their work with Miles Davis, have brought them lasting fame.</font></font></p>
<p><font size="+1"><font size="+1">In addition, she has been hard at work on the score to a theater piece called <i>Sister No Blues</i>, commissioned by the American Musical Theater. Allen has seen the piece through several changes of playwright, adapting her compositions to interweave with the plot as it has evolved. <i>Sister No Blues</i> examines the lives of a great jazz diva and the three younger women who are her protÚgÚes.</font></font></p>
<p><font size="+1"><font size="+1">"These are three very different women, very strong, each with her own solo career," Allen says. "It's about the dynamic among them and how they go about fighting their own egos so that they can make the music and be the greatest they can be."</font></font></p>
<p><font size="+1"><font size="+1">This idea -- that your ego can get in the way of your music -- is one that guides Geri Allen in her own life. Where less reflective musicians might take playing with Ornette Coleman and Betty Carter as a sign that they had made it, here is what Allen has to say: "I am very humbled by all of this wonderful music, and I am really trying to practice and study and get better."</font></font></p>
<p><font size="+1"><font size="+1">In fact, she is eager to talk about just what practicing and getting better means on a day-to-day basis. "I still study the great pianists," she says. Recently, for instance, she's been analyzing the work of Bud Powell, who is known for his collaborations with the saxophonist Charlie Parker. Says Allen, "Every day, I'll spend a period of time studying Bud Powell's music. I'll try to transcribe some of it. I'll listen to all the details, from his phrasing to his tone production to the way he negotiated harmonies. Then I'll sit down and try to imitate that.</font></font></p>
<p><font size="+1"><font size="+1">"I also think there should be a certain amount of creative practice every day," she adds. She concedes that, between travelling and performing -- not to mention caring for her four-year-old daughter -- it's sometimes hard to get in as much practice as she'd like: "It takes a lot of time."</font></font></p>
<p><font size="+1"><font size="+1">Still, she emphasizes the importance of dedication: "I want to perfect myself as far as I can, and that is achieved by a specific process that involves daily commitment."</font></font></p>
<p><font size="+1"><font size="+1">It's important to realize that the serious and sometimes self-effacing comments that Geri Allen makes arise not out of a lack of confidence, then, but rather out of the magnitude of her aspirations. In what she calls her "loftier moments," she sets her sights on attaining the originality and the virtuosity and the lasting influence of legendary players like Thelonious Monk or Bud Powell.</font></font></p>
<p><font size="+1"><font size="+1">"I try to look to the greatest musicians and say, 'I want to approach that,'" Allen admits. It is an effort to which she brings her whole self: her hands and her heart, her talent, her intellect, her sense of discipline, and that emotion musicians call "a love for the music" -- an emotion that's one part sheer enjoyment and one part beautiful, passionate need.</font></font></p> tag:jazzburgher.ning.com,2017-07-21:1992552:Comment:4118252017-07-21T00:27:51.540ZDr. Nelson Harrisonhttp://jazzburgher.ning.com/profile/NelsonHarrison
<p><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0kyWtk4NVZM?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0kyWtk4NVZM?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</p> In 2016 Geri Allen was awarde…tag:jazzburgher.ning.com,2017-07-08:1992552:Comment:4111742017-07-08T21:56:26.244ZDr. Nelson Harrisonhttp://jazzburgher.ning.com/profile/NelsonHarrison
<p>In 2016 Geri Allen was awarded the Jazz Hero Award for Pittsburgh by the New York-based Jazz Journalists Association (JJA) which I, as the 2015 Jazz Hero Awardee, had the honor of presenting to her at the Pitt Jazz Ensemble's 2016 Annual spring concert.</p>
<p>In 2016 Geri Allen was awarded the Jazz Hero Award for Pittsburgh by the New York-based Jazz Journalists Association (JJA) which I, as the 2015 Jazz Hero Awardee, had the honor of presenting to her at the Pitt Jazz Ensemble's 2016 Annual spring concert.</p> Nelson,
My heart has been br…tag:jazzburgher.ning.com,2017-07-08:1992552:Comment:4111732017-07-08T21:43:41.009ZDr. Nelson Harrisonhttp://jazzburgher.ning.com/profile/NelsonHarrison
<p>Nelson, </p>
<div>My heart has been broken. I knew she was ill a few months</div>
<div>back but I was told she didn't want it out and in the public.</div>
<div>What I didn't know was just how ill she was. Dwight Andrews</div>
<div>has been a confidant to Geri for many years. We all have known</div>
<div>her and embraced herself and talent. I choose to grieve privately.</div>
<div>I'm grateful to you for all for keeping me informed. How historic is </div>
<div>the Courier.......Sooooo…</div>
<p>Nelson, </p>
<div>My heart has been broken. I knew she was ill a few months</div>
<div>back but I was told she didn't want it out and in the public.</div>
<div>What I didn't know was just how ill she was. Dwight Andrews</div>
<div>has been a confidant to Geri for many years. We all have known</div>
<div>her and embraced herself and talent. I choose to grieve privately.</div>
<div>I'm grateful to you for all for keeping me informed. How historic is </div>
<div>the Courier.......Sooooo historic.......Be Peace</div> Geri Allen, director of Jazz…tag:jazzburgher.ning.com,2017-07-07:1992552:Comment:4110442017-07-07T21:53:03.625ZDr. Nelson Harrisonhttp://jazzburgher.ning.com/profile/NelsonHarrison
<h1 class="post-meta__title">Geri Allen, director of Jazz studies at Pitt, remembered as a ‘powerful force’ (Courier exclusive interviews, story)</h1>
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<div class="post-author ione-toggle"><span class="post-meta-block"><span class="post-author__name">C. Denise Johnson, For New Pittsburgh Courier…</span></span></div>
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<h1 class="post-meta__title">Geri Allen, director of Jazz studies at Pitt, remembered as a ‘powerful force’ (Courier exclusive interviews, story)</h1>
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<div class="post-author ione-toggle"><span class="post-meta-block"><span class="post-author__name">C. Denise Johnson, For New Pittsburgh Courier</span></span></div>
<div class="post-sharing"><a class="post-sharing-button-custom ione-toggle-triggerlink" href="https://newpittsburghcourieronline.com/2017/07/05/geri-allen-commemorated/?omcamp=es-npco-nl&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Campaign&utm_term=NPC%20-%20ALL%20Subscribers#"></a><div class="sharing-block"><span class="read-counter-container"><span class="read-counter-label"> </span></span></div>
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<div id="attachment_263438" style="width: 690px;" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img src="https://ionenewpittsburghcourier.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/geri-allen3_0.jpg?quality=100&strip=all&strip=all" class="size-full wp-image-263438" alt="" style="display: inline;" width="680" height="454"/><p class="wp-caption-text"><strong>GERI ALLEN</strong>, the director of Jazz studies at Pitt, died June 27 of cancer.</p>
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<p><span class="dropcap">N</span>athan Davis wasn’t able to sleep. The retired educator and founder of the Pitt Jazz Studies program had just learned of the grave illness and subsequent passing of Geri Allen. Davis considered her his protégé.</p>
<p>As word of Allen’s June 27 death spread, Pittsburgh mourned an adopted daughter who solidified her standing in the world of Jazz, a tireless educator, a disciple of Mary Lou Williams and a champion of women in Jazz.</p>
<p>Allen, the director of Jazz studies at the University of Pittsburgh, had just celebrated her 60th birthday on June 12. She succumbed to cancer while in Philadelphia, surrounded by her family.</p>
<p>A product of Detroit’s Cass Technical High School, Allen was one of the first to graduate from Howard University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Jazz studies. It was at Howard where she began to embrace music from all cultures and it greatly influenced her work. She met Davis through one of her instructors who had studied under him. After graduation from Howard, and while studying under Kenny Barron in New York City, Davis encouraged her to attend Pitt. She followed Davis’ advice and earned her Master’s degree in Ethnomusicology in 1982.</p>
<p>Davis remembers Allen as a relentless student who immersed herself in music. “I remember one night I played in the city and around midnight I saw her walking down the street; she’d lock herself in (a rehearsal studio) and practiced into the wee hours. I insisted she get in my car so I could take her home— it wasn’t safe for her to be out alone at night.”</p>
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<div class="post-wrapper-content"><div class="post-content"><div id="attachment_263448" style="width: 690px;" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img src="https://ionenewpittsburghcourier.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/a12geriallenwilliamssisters.jpg?quality=100&strip=all&strip=all" class="size-full wp-image-263448" alt="" style="display: inline;" width="680" height="454"/><p class="wp-caption-text"><strong>GERI ALLEN</strong>, middle, with Margie Burley, left, and Geri Garnett, right. Burley and Garnett are the suviving sisters of renowned Jazz legend Mary Lou Williams. (Photo credit, Nelson Harrison)</p>
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<p>Kenneth Powell, adjunct saxophone instructor at Pitt, was in the same program with Allen. “We performed together in a group called The Sounds of Togetherness,” he recalled. “Upon her graduation, Geri very quickly developed and substantially, becoming an innovative and influential force in the mainstream and post-modern jazz genres.”</p>
<p>Allen was ever mindful of the trailblazers who left signs along the path for her to follow. “Flying Toward the Sound” (a solo piano suite in eight refractions) is an original composition inspired by three great pianists—Herbie Hancock, Cecil Taylor and McCoy Tyner, after Allen received a 2008 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for Music Composition.</p>
<p>“I would like to think the creative process was more about refracting the admiration and love I have for them through my own muse, and allowing the music to reflect the ways they’ve enriched my journey through the years,” Allen said at the time.</p>
<p>That journey included a 2012 fundraiser concert for the Hill House featuring trio compatriots Terry Lynne Carrington and Esperanza Spaulding (ACS) in the new Elsie Hillman Auditorium.</p>
<p>When she assumed leadership of Pitt’s Jazz studies, Allen hit the ground running. She curated the 2013 Jazz Seminar & Concert bringing vocalist Carmen Lundy and tap dancer Brinae Ali.</p>
<p>Allen revamped the program with additional faculty and outstanding staff and students, according to Deane Root, professor and department chair. “Geri also quickly took a role across campus in many capacities, including diversity initiatives, the Year of the Humanities, outreach programs, the development of resources and archives, and collaboration with other institutions,” Root said.</p>
<p>In March 2014, she conducted a cyber-symposium on Mary Lou Williams with participants in five locations simultaneously across the country. That same year, she helped found the All-Female Jazz Residency, a summer program at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center for young Jazz musicians in their teens and twenties.</p>
<p>“Geri has done much to elucidate the legacy of Mary Lou Williams both as a performer and clinician,” said Dr. Nelson Harrison of the Pittsburgh Jazz Network. “She was music director of the Mary Lou Collective. She also played the role of Mary Lou Williams in the 1996 Robert Altman film ‘Jazz 34: Kansas City.’ Unique to this film was the fact that the musicians were actually playing.”</p>
<p>“Geri was very pro-active in honoring the great Pittsburgh jazz piano tradition,” Harrison told the New Pittsburgh Courier. “She told me how honored she felt to have the opportunity to play a tribute at Billy Strayhorn’s Centennial concert on the same stage that he played when he was a student at Westinghouse High School. She recently spoke with Ahmad Jamal about honoring him at the 2017 Pitt Jazz Seminar to be held in November.”</p>
<p>Allen was co-producer of the recently-released 3-CD set “The Complete Concert By The Sea,” an expanded version of the best-known album by Pittsburgh Jazz great Erroll Garner, which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Historical Album last year. Allen also helped to secure the donation of the Erroll Garner Archive for the University Library System.</p>
<p>“She embedded her presence in the Pittsburgh Jazz community in the very short time she was with us and will be remembered by all who were fortunate to have known her in one way or another from students, colleagues and community,” said Harrison.</p>
<p>“When you look back at women in Jazz,” said Powell, “she’s going to be among the greatest ever. The synergy of her creativity and technical proficiency made her a powerful force that will be acknowledged for years to come.”</p>
<p><em>(Geri Allen’s visitation will take place on Friday, July 7 from 6 to 8 p.m. and the funeral is scheduled for Saturday, July 8, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Bethany Baptist Church, 275 W. Market St., Newark, New Jersey. Afterwards, attendees are invited to a repast in the lobby of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, 1 Center St., Newark.)</em></p>
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</div> "Ms. Allen was a deeply value…tag:jazzburgher.ning.com,2017-07-06:1992552:Comment:4110362017-07-06T02:09:41.581ZDr. Nelson Harrisonhttp://jazzburgher.ning.com/profile/NelsonHarrison
<div align="left" id="aolmail_yui_3_16_0_1_1499298498513_8278" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;">"Ms. Allen was a deeply valued and much loved member of the Motéma family and the jazz community at large. Her singular creativity and astonishing pianistic expression exemplified all that we hope to stand for: unfettered creativity, undeniable authenticity, deep intelligence, natural beauty, fearless individuality, creative freedom, rich complexity, powerful…</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;" id="aolmail_yui_3_16_0_1_1499298498513_8278" align="left">"Ms. Allen was a deeply valued and much loved member of the Motéma family and the jazz community at large. Her singular creativity and astonishing pianistic expression exemplified all that we hope to stand for: unfettered creativity, undeniable authenticity, deep intelligence, natural beauty, fearless individuality, creative freedom, rich complexity, powerful simplicity, dedication to justice and freedom for all, and, most of all, an unfailing commitment to share, through music, the grace that connects us all."</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;" align="left"><div style="display: inline; font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal;" align="center"><div style="display: inline; font-size: 10pt; text-align: left;" align="left"><div style="display: inline; font-size: 10pt;" align="center"><div style="display: inline;" align="center"><strong>Jana Herzen, Motéma Music</strong><span> </span></div>
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</div> "Geri never compromised her a…tag:jazzburgher.ning.com,2017-07-06:1992552:Comment:4110352017-07-06T02:08:34.242ZDr. Nelson Harrisonhttp://jazzburgher.ning.com/profile/NelsonHarrison
<div align="left" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;">"Geri never compromised her art, no one can cite even one instance in which she "sold out" her music over an entire career, now tragically cut short. She was so young and such a fine person, so brilliant, so authentically unpretentiously original, so consistently noble in her harmonious conduct to her fellow artists. Geri was one of the ones who keep the rest of us honest. Thank you for your service of Music…</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;" align="left">"Geri never compromised her art, no one can cite even one instance in which she "sold out" her music over an entire career, now tragically cut short. She was so young and such a fine person, so brilliant, so authentically unpretentiously original, so consistently noble in her harmonious conduct to her fellow artists. Geri was one of the ones who keep the rest of us honest. Thank you for your service of Music to us, deeply respected, honorable sister."</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;" align="left"><div style="display: inline; font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal;" align="center"><div style="display: inline; font-size: 10pt; text-align: left;" align="left"><div style="display: inline; font-size: 10pt;" align="center"><div style="display: inline;" align="center"><strong>Benny Green</strong></div>
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</div> "Geri Allen was one of the gr…tag:jazzburgher.ning.com,2017-07-06:1992552:Comment:4110342017-07-06T02:07:40.485ZDr. Nelson Harrisonhttp://jazzburgher.ning.com/profile/NelsonHarrison
<div align="left" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><div align="center" style="display: inline; font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal;"><div align="left" style="display: inline; font-size: 10pt; text-align: left;">"Geri Allen was one of the greatest most influential pianist of the 80's Renaissance and in all the history of our music. She influenced several subsequent generations of pianist, composers and forward…</div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;" align="left"><div style="display: inline; font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal;" align="center"><div style="display: inline; font-size: 10pt; text-align: left;" align="left">"Geri Allen was one of the greatest most influential pianist of the 80's Renaissance and in all the history of our music. She influenced several subsequent generations of pianist, composers and forward thinkers of music. I was blessed to have her on several of my recordings and her playing on V and Triangular help set, maintain and raise the standard for the music that followed. She was a gentle, peaceful loving spirit, a dutiful mother and the world is a better place because of her. Long live the music and Legacy of Geri Allen: Jazz Warrior Queen"</div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;" align="left"><div style="display: inline; font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal;" align="center"><div style="display: inline; font-size: 10pt; text-align: left;" align="left"><div style="display: inline; font-size: 10pt;" align="center"><div style="display: inline;" align="center"><strong>Ralph Peterson, Jr.</strong></div>
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</div> "Geri was a powerful innovato…tag:jazzburgher.ning.com,2017-07-06:1992552:Comment:4108282017-07-06T02:06:25.756ZDr. Nelson Harrisonhttp://jazzburgher.ning.com/profile/NelsonHarrison
<div align="left" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;">"Geri was a powerful innovator in modern music and a visionary pianist. She was also a scholar and historian of African American music, a community organizer, an institution builder, a feminist, a deeply committed and big-hearted educator, and a quietly determined leader. As a musician she was a conduit for spiritual truths and healing energies. This is a tremendous loss for all of us, and we will strive to…</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;" align="left">"Geri was a powerful innovator in modern music and a visionary pianist. She was also a scholar and historian of African American music, a community organizer, an institution builder, a feminist, a deeply committed and big-hearted educator, and a quietly determined leader. As a musician she was a conduit for spiritual truths and healing energies. This is a tremendous loss for all of us, and we will strive to uphold & honor her legacy."</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;" align="left"><div style="display: inline; font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal;" align="center"><div style="display: inline; font-size: 10pt; text-align: left;" align="left"><div style="display: inline; font-size: 10pt;" align="center"><div style="display: inline;" align="center"><strong>Vijay Iyer</strong></div>
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