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From Blakey to Brown, Como to Costa, Eckstine to Eldridge, Galbraith to Garner, Harris to Hines, Horne to Hyman, Jamal to Jefferson, Kelly to Klook; Mancini to Marmarosa, May to Mitchell, Negri to Nestico, Parlan to Ponder, Reed to Ruther, Strayhorn to Sullivan, Turk to Turrentine, Wade to Williams… the forthcoming publication Treasury of Pittsburgh Jazz Connections by Dr. Nelson Harrison and Dr. Ralph Proctor, Jr. will document the legacy of one of the world’s greatest jazz capitals.

 

Do you want to know who Dizzy Gillespie  idolized? Did you ever wonder who inspired Kenny Clarke and Art Blakey? Who was the pianist that mentored Monk, Bud Powell, Tad Dameron, Elmo Hope, Sarah Vaughan and Mel Torme? Who was Art Tatum’s idol and Nat Cole’s mentor? What musical quartet pioneered the concept adopted later by the Modern Jazz Quartet? Were you ever curious to know who taught saxophone to Stanley Turrentine or who taught piano to Ahmad Jamal? What community music school trained Robert McFerrin, Sr. for his history-making debut with the Metropolitan Opera? What virtually unknown pianist was a significant influence on young John Coltrane, Shirley Scott, McCoy Tyner, Bobby Timmons and Ray Bryant when he moved to Philadelphia from Pittsburgh in the 1940s?  Would you be surprised to know that Erroll Garner attended classes at the Julliard School of Music in New York and was at the top of his class in writing and arranging proficiency?

 

Some answers  can be gleaned from the postings on the Pittsburgh Jazz Network.

 

For almost 100 years the Pittsburgh region has been a metacenter of jazz originality that is second to no other in the history of jazz.  One of the best kept secrets in jazz folklore, the Pittsburgh Jazz Legacy has heretofore remained mythical.  We have dubbed it “the greatest story never told” since it has not been represented in writing before now in such a way as to be accessible to anyone seeking to know more about it.  When it was happening, little did we know how priceless the memories would become when the times were gone.

 

Today jazz is still king in Pittsburgh, with events, performances and activities happening all the time. The Pittsburgh Jazz Network is dedicated to celebrating and showcasing the places, artists and fans that carry on the legacy of Pittsburgh's jazz heritage.

 

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Duke Ellington is first African-American and the first musician to solo on U.S. circulating coin

    MARY LOU WILLIAMS     

            INTERVIEW

       In Her Own Words

Geri Allen, Brilliantly Expressive Pianist, Composer and Educator, Dies at 60

Geri Allen, Brilliantly Expressive Pianist, Composer and Educator, Dies at 60

4 hours ago

Geri Allen, a widely influential jazz pianist, composer and educator who defied classification while steadfastly affirming her roots in the hard-bop tradition of her native Detroit, died on Tuesday in Philadelphia. She was 60, and lived for the last four years in Pittsburgh.

The cause was cancer, said Ora Harris, her manager of 30 years. The news shocked Allen’s devoted listeners as well as her peers, and the many pianists she directly influenced.

In addition to her varied and commanding work as a leader, Allen made her mark as a venturesome improviser on notable albums with the saxophonist-composers Ornette Coleman, Oliver Lake, Steve Coleman and Charles Lloyd; drummer Ralph Peterson, Jr.; bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Paul Motian; and many others. Her recent collaborations with drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, in separate trios featuring bassist Esperanza Spalding and tenor saxophonist David Murray, found her in a ceaselessly exploratory mode, probing new harmonic expanses and dynamic arcs.

Allen’s solo piano work, from Home Grown in 1985 to Flying Toward the Sound in 2010, reveals an uncommon technical prowess and kaleidoscopic tonal range. The subtitle of Flying Toward the Sound claims inspiration from Cecil Taylor, McCoy Tyner and Herbie Hancock specifically, but on this and other recordings we hear Allen, unfailingly distinctive. From Home Grown, the track “Black Man,” with its looping, interlocking pulses and forward momentum, points clearly toward a rhythmic sensibility heard today from such celebrated pianists as Craig Taborn and Vijay Iyer.

Geri Antoinette Allen was born on June 12, 1957 in Pontiac, Michigan, and raised in Detroit. Her father, Mount V. Allen, Jr., was a principal in the Detroit public school system, and her mother, Barbara Jean, was a defense contract administrator for the U.S. Government.

Allen took up the piano at age seven and went on to graduate from Cass Technical High School, the alma mater of jazz greats on the order of Paul Chambers, Wardell Gray, Gerald Wilson and Donald Byrd. 

While in school Allen became a protégé of the late trumpeter Marcus Belgrave, who directed the Jazz Development Workshop and also mentored saxophonist Kenny Garrett and violinist Regina Carter, among many others. (Belgrave would go on to appear on Allen’s albums The Nurturer and Maroons in the early 1990s.) From another mentor, the late drummer Roy Brooks, Allen developed a deep love for Thelonious Monk, whose compositions she masterfully interpreted.

Allen graduated from Howard University in 1979, as one of the first students to complete a jazz studies degree there. She earned an M.A. in ethnomusicology from the University of Pittsburgh in 1982. For part of a year she sustained herself touring with former Supreme Mary Wilson. In 1984 she debuted with The Printmakers, a tight, imaginative trio session with bassist Anthony Cox and drummer Andrew Cyrille.

Soon afterward, Allen made a series of statements with the vanguardist M-Base Collective, spearheaded by Steve Coleman. She appeared on his debut album, Motherland Pulse, in 1985, and on several subsequent releases by his flagship band, Five Elements. Her own album Open on All Sides in the Middle, from ’86, featured Coleman in a bustling electro-acoustic ensemble, alongside other players including Belgrave and trombonist Robin Eubanks.

Trio summits followed with Ron Carter, a fellow Cass Tech alum, and Tony Williams (Twenty One); with Haden and Motian (Etudes, Live at the Village Vanguard); and with Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette (The Life of a Song). In each setting, Allen proved more than a virtuoso able to marshal the greatest rhythm sections; she was a musical partner with prodigious ears, motivated by the percussive energy of the avant-garde, the elusive unified spark of straight-ahead swing, and the expressive truth of piano balladry. 

Allen’s 1996 encounter with Ornette Coleman, documented on the albums Sound Museum: Hidden Man and Sound Museum: Three Women, stands out in part for its historical significance: this was the first time since Walter Norris on Somethin’ Else!!!! in 1958 that an acoustic pianist had recorded with Coleman.

The piano had little use in his free-floating music because it tended to impose a conventional chordal fixity. Not with Allen on the bandstand. She played a multifaceted textural and contrapuntal role, her ocean-deep harmonic knowledge guiding but never limiting her, from gorgeous and evocative rubato episodes to urgent free blowing. Her melodic voice, too, sometimes moving in unison with Coleman, brought a clarion intensity that remains unique in his output.

Along with her rare qualities as a player, Allen had significant impact as an educator for 10 years at the University of Michigan. She began as director of jazz studies at the University of Pittsburgh, her alma mater, in 2013, succeeding one of her mentors, Nathan Davis. Three years later she became artistic director of the Carr Center — characterized by Mark Stryker, author of the forthcoming book Made in Detroit: Jazz from the Motor City, as “a downtown Detroit arts organization that primarily champions African-American culture and has a strong arts education program.”

In both her institutional work and her musical projects, Allen engaged in a serious way with jazz as part of a larger African-American continuum in the arts. Her 2013 album Grand River Crossings: Motown & Motor City Inspirations was a hometown homage but also a reflection on the porous boundaries of black music. Last year the artist Carrie Mae Weems welcomed Allen and her trio to the Guggenheim Museum for part of a performance series called “Past Tense/Future Perfect.”

In her own work, Allen often sought to broaden her reference points and sonic palette, featuring the Atlanta Jazz Chorus on Timeless Portraits and Dreams (2006); the electric and acoustic guitar of Living Colour’s Vernon Reid on The Gathering (1998); and tap dancers Lloyd Storey, on Open on All Sides in the Middle, and Maurice Chestnut, on Geri Allen & Time Line Live (2010). She shed light on the legacy of the still underappreciated pianist and composer Mary Lou Williams on Zodiac Suite: Revisited, credited to the Mary Lou Williams Collective, with bassist Buster Williams and drummers Billy Hart and Andrew Cyrille.

Allen is survived by her father; her brother, Mount Allen III; and three children, Laila Deen, Wallace Vernell, and Barbara Ann. Her marriage to the trumpeter Wallace Roney ended in divorce.

Along with a Guggenheim Fellowship, in 2008, Allen received the African American Classical Music Award from Spellman College, and a Distinguished Alumni Award from Howard. In 1995 became the first recipient of Soul Train’s Lady of Soul Award for jazz album of the year, for Twenty-One. The following year she became the first woman to win the Jazzpar Prize, a highly prestigious Danish honor. 

Over years of seeing Allen live, it’s striking to recall her at Caramoor in 1994, when she shared a solo piano bill with the great Kenny Barron. She parsed Monk and other material, including her own, and encored in a riotous two-piano showdown with Barron on “Tea for Two,” dealing impressively with a tune of older vintage. Years later, at the Village Vanguard, she led an engrossing quartet with Hart, bassist (and Cass Tech alum) Robert Hurst, and percussionist Mino Cinelu.

In terms of the unexpected, however, don’t for a moment discount Allen’s 2011 Christmas album, A Child Is Born. She plays not just piano but also Farfisa organ, celeste, clavinet and Fender Rhodes, taking “Angels We Have Heard On High” and “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” to harmonic places they’ve likely never been. Even at its most searching, complex and sonically novel, there’s a contemplative quality in the music that makes this a worthy listen as we mourn Allen’s untimely passing.

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Geri Allen: Mothership Connection

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Published 09/01/2004

It’s Monday night and the house is jumping. No, we’re not in some famous jazz haunt like the Village Vanguard-we’re in Upper Montclair, N.J., and Geri Allen is standing at her stove, hooking it up like all loving moms do. Dinner tonight? Brussel sprouts, baked chicken and macaroni and cheese.

Allen is catering to her three energetic children-Laila, 14; Wally, 8; and Barbara, 6-and the family’s good-natured but rambunctious pooch, Krypto, when suddenly Wallace Roney enters the house. After exchanging pleasantries with his wife and children, Roney heads upstairs, grabs his trumpet and blazes through a series of scales with pinpoint precision.

Downstairs in the kitchen, which is decorated with crayon drawings and watercolor paintings, Allen is putting the finishing touches on the meal. “Did you eat?” she asks softly. “No,” I reply. “Well, there’s plenty, so come to the table.”

Allen and Roney’s professional and personal worlds appear to integrate seamlessly, and the vibe in the home falls somewhere between The Cosby Show’s Huxtables and the Carmichaels in Spike Lee’s Crooklyn. I ask Allen what’s her secret to balancing a career and a family. “I don’t want to talk about it, because as soon as you talk about it, everything falls apart,” she laughs. “I just pray a lot.”

And she writes a lot.

Domesticity fuels many of Allen’s compositions, and that’s true on her triumphant new CD, The Life of a Song (Telarc)-her first record in six years, which sees her reteaming with her heavy-duty bandmates from Betty Carter’s trio: bassist Dave Holland and drummer Jack DeJohnette. The album opens with “LBW’s House (The Remix),” a jubilant Latin-tinged tribute to her kids, and the tune projects all of their adolescent ebullience. The “remix” tag is there because the song’s a sly reworking of “Laila’s House” from her 1992 Blue Note disc, Maroons. “The energy and purity that children bring into a house makes you focus on what’s important,” Allen says. “Whatever else you’re doing, they have to be acknowledged at all times. They’re the priority. Those are ones who I will ultimately judge my life by.”

Allen could easily pull together all the tunes that she’s scripted for her family into one potent single disc. There’s also “Baby’s Breath (for Little Barbara),” “Gabriel’s Royal Blue Reals,” “Dark Prince” and “Soul Heir”-the first one dedicated to the youngest daughter and the following three to her husband-from The Gathering (Verve, 1998). Plus, “Mother Wit” (for her mother Barbara Allen), “New Eyes Opening (for her son) and “FMFMF (For My Family, For My Friends)” on Eyes…In the Back of Your Head (Blue Note, 1997) and “Night of Power (For My Daughter Laila)” on The Nurturer (Blue Note, 1990).

“I’m grateful to be here and I understand that there are legions of people before me who made it possible for me to do my work,” says Allen, now sitting on her living room sofa. “Those tributes are about gratitude.” On the new disc, “LBW’s House (The Remix)” leads into “Mounts and Mountains,” a sterling tone poem to her father and brother.

Her musical displays of appreciation extend beyond bloodlines. The Life of a Song features “In Appreciation” for Civil Rights heroine Rosa Parks and the gutbucket funker “Black Bottom,” which gives props to her home city of Detroit and its once-pulsating entertainment and commerce district. “It was like the heartbeat of Detroit’s jazz scene, and probably one of the biggest all-black business communities in the country. The Paradise Theater was there, and [the district] was named Paradise Valley, but we affectionately called it Black Bottom. There was a circuit in which musicians would go from town to town, and it would be an on-going working environment. I wanted to pay tribute to that memory, just because that’s when the music really thrived.

“[Detroit’s] scene was very vibrant with a lot of great musicians like Marcus Belgrave, Donald Walden, Roy Brooks and the McKinnley family. There were all these places to play every weekend. It would start late at night and go into the wee hours of the morning. That’s where a lot of us learned to improvise. The older musicians would take you and put you under a baptism by fire. I wasn’t necessarily ready, but there was patience with these great musicians, who would give you a chance to grow.”

Allen says her family wasn’t too thrilled initially with her career path in music. “When you make a commitment to this lifestyle as an artist, there’s an ethereal nature to it. [My parents] had a particular vision of what I should be. They wanted me to be happy, which translated into finding a solid day job, so that I wouldn’t have to struggle through life.”

Her career is certainly no stranger to struggle. Allen is one of the most gifted jazz artists of our time, and she released some of the most memorable jazz CDs of the ’90s. She’s also performed and been singled out by some of jazz’s finest musicians such as Steve Coleman, Charlie Haden, Wayne Shorter, Betty Carter, Ornette Coleman and Charles Lloyd. So it’s somewhat baffling to conceive that she was without a record deal for so long.

Soon after Verve released The Gathering, Polygram and Universal merged, and she, like many other artists, was dropped from the roster. “I really don’t spend energy on that, because I’m focusing on the future,” she says when asked to discuss the period between record deals. But she praises her manager, Ora Harris, for keeping her working steadily during that time. “There was a time when an album didn’t define whether you could work,” Allen says. “I remember when you could really have a working band and participate in its evolution. That was a real vital part of this music. To me, that’s really key to the music continuing to flourish in the way that it really should. A lot of [record] companies are going for catalog now, in the safety of knowing that that classic music will sell forever, which is true. But it’s important to have faith and to support the music of the present and future.”

It’s interesting to note that for all of Allen’s various personal tributes, and her profound respect and knowledge of jazz history, she’s never recorded an easily marketable songbook album. There is no Geri Allen Plays Cole Porter in her discography. “I’m trying to be a writer,” she says. “So, I tend to put a lot of original music on my records. I’ve always felt that composition helps crystallize your vision and voice. That has always been a real important focal point for me. But far be it from me to criticize anybody’s way of expression. If it’s sincere, it comes through, whether it’s through another person’s composition or your own. I think the most important thing is what you communicate and at what level.”

Allen isn’t totally averse to featuring standards on her discs as evidenced by her splendid renderings of Mal Waldron’s “Soul Eyes,” Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life” and Bud Powell’s “Dance of the Infidels” on The Life of a Song. Each performance is a great testament to Allen’s talents as an interpreter and arranger. She extracts all the melancholy out of “Lush Life” yet still suggests a hint of optimism with her lyrical voicings. Her “Dance of the Infidels” is downright frisky, and Allen says she wanted to make the connection between Lil Hardin Armstrong, Bud Powell and Herbie Hancock in terms of their modernistic approaches. On “Soul Eyes” Allen shows off her romantic side, draping Waldron’s lovely melody with a haunting horn arrangement from flugelhornist Marcus Belgrave, saxophonist Dwight Andrews and trombonist Clifton Anderson.

What also makes The Life of a Song one of this year’s most rewarding discs is the joyous interplay between Allen, DeJohnette and Holland. This is her first time recording with the two since Betty Carter’s 1993 live disc, Feed the Fire (Verve). “In context with Betty, working with Jack and Dave was overwhelming for me,” Allen says. “I wished that I could have been a better musician at that time. I’d love to do some space travel and go back there now with all the experiences and knowledge that I’ve accumulated. I think that I could serve the music better now. But I had that blessing and opportunity then, and I’m very grateful for that. So, in a way, the new album gave me an opportunity to revisit that moment with Betty.”

DeJohnette recognizes Allen’s musical growth in the 11-year span between Feed the Fire and The Life of a Song. “She’s matured a lot in terms of improvising and interpreting,” he says. “Geri has really done her homework on all levels. Being a mother has brought another creative energy to her. On this recording, she came out much more determined, commanding, and confident. Her music makes you take notice.”

There’s a trace of humility when Allen looks at her previous albums in light of her new disc. She’s striving for a higher degree of personalized clarity, underscored with an emotional and intellectual immediacy, in her music. “At this point, connecting with people is the focus,” she says. “Utilizing all my musical information to communicate, like having all the words at your disposal but being as clear as possible, using them at the right moment.”

Allen also sees The Life of a Song as a continuation of the musical journey she traveled with her discs from the mid-’90s. She looks at her 1994 trio date Twenty-One, with Ron Carter and Tony Williams, and Eyes…In the Back of Your Head, her most adventurous outing, featuring Ornette Coleman, Cyro Baptista and Roney, as significant signposts in her musical development. “It really changed my life to sit next to all of those innovators and experience the insides of what being an innovator really means,” she says. “Each of those albums are stepping stones to me trying to crystallize my vision-being the best musician that I can be, at that moment-and learning from whatever experience of that moment. Your weaknesses change all of the time. Each of those settings was a new universe unto themselves.”

Allen says that masters such as Ornette Coleman, Betty Carter and Charles Lloyd were incredibly open with her. “The musicians I’ve worked with who have been the most innovative have also been the most generous. There’s a generosity in which the music is placed first,” she says as the plinking of piano notes wanders in from the distance. A piano tuner dropped by earlier to tweak the instrument before band practice, and bassist Darryl Hall just came in.

No more talk. It’s time for music.

The next day there’s calm in the Allen-Roney home. With the kids at school, Allen has the house to herself and she apologizes for all the untimely distractions the night before. She seems more serene, more focused, and the quietness gives her room to reflect on the blessings of life-especially Wallace Roney.

“I think he really epitomizes the best of what the music has to offer on every level,” she says. “He’s probably the most prepared musician I’ve ever met of this generation. There’s a depth to his playing that’s very unusual. I’m just in awe of his abilities

and what he’s accomplished as a musician. Through the years, I’ve learned so much from him. I think it’s cool to have the setup where I can go out and make music with all these great musicians, and then come home with one of the greatest musicians of our time and have a great dialogue about musical processes. It’s an ongoing workshop in a place of trust that’s like a mothership of information.”

She goes on to talk about her recent career breakthroughs in a voice that is excited, joyful. In addition to ending her six-year recording silence as a solo artist, Allen’s recently had the chance to lend her writing and arrangements skills to other artists such as singers Andy Bey and Mary Stallings. With Bey, she cushioned his baritone voice with luxurious, orchestral horn arrangements for his last disc, American Song (Savoy). With Stallings, Allen functions as an arranger, instrumentalist, composer and producer. She and Stallings are now putting the final touches on a yet-to-be-titled disc for Half Note.

“She took me on a ride,” Stallings says. “She brought new life into some old material that’s just breathtaking. Geri was so refreshing to work with, because she’s very spontaneous. She’s really a genius, without question.” Bey shares Stallings’ sentiments about Allen’s writing and arranging. He’s been a fan of her music ever since hearing selections from her 1987 LP, Open on All Sides in the Middle (Minor). “I remember liking the concept, because it was so different. That was actually before I heard her play in person. Besides being a great piano player, she’s a great songwriter and orchestrater. She has it all covered as far as I’m concerned.”

Allen helped score the HBO movie Beah: A Black Woman Speaks, a documentary on actress Beah Richards, with Bernice Johnson Reagon and Toshi Reagon. Director Lisa Gay Hamilton was so enthused about Allen’s “The Gathering” that she initially wanted to use it for the film’s opening sequence. Instead, Hamilton uses the celebratory “In Appreciation” from The Life of a Song in an empowering scene sequence involving a black, female freedom fighter defiantly dancing amid a maelstrom of attack dogs and water hoses. Allen dedicates the song to Rosa Parks, but she also cites Dr. Billy Taylor’s “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free” as a significant inspiration. “My generation is still very connected to the Civil Rights struggle, and we understand that the struggle continues,” Allen says. “We can’t forget those people who came before us and made it possible for us to maneuver in this world in a whole other way that wasn’t possible about 50 years ago. Some of these people we know very well, and some are nameless.”

Allen has another new project that is making her glow: Time Line, which features bassist Darryl Hall, drummer Mark Johnson and the saxophonists David McMurray and her brother-in-law Antoine Roney. With Time Line, she incorporates vintage electric keyboards such as the Fender Rhodes and synths, which are complemented by McMurray’s doubling up on various electronic devices. “The idea behind Time Line is to connect the continuity from Africa to the present, through all the ways in which the music morphed,” Allen says. “Wherever black people were dispersed-the Caribbean, South America, Cuba, Brazil, the U.S.-we access that music, using electronica as a tinge.” For this band, she also wants to employ a tap dancer, something that she did 15 years ago with hoofer Lloyd Storey on Open on All Sides in the Middle. Last June at Carnegie Hall she witnessed Savion Glover’s mesmerizing performance at the JVC Festival with Wayne Shorter’s quartet, Herbie Hancock and a full orchestra. “Savion just displayed this awe,” Allen enthuses. “His virtuosity was reminiscent of Tony Williams, and the way he was responding to Wayne. It was one of those moments in which I’m so grateful to have witnessed. It just validated my idea.”

Another band that Allen has in the works is the Mary Lou Williams Project, which features Billy Hart and Buster Williams. Earlier this year the three performed Williams’ Zodiac Suite at Jazz at the Lincoln Center, and the trio performed excerpts from the same suite at the Kennedy Center for the Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival. Next year Allen hopes to release a series of discs featuring compositions exclusively by Williams.

As the afternoon progresses, the calm gives way to the family’s energy. Roney comes home and Laila, Wally and Barbara soon follow him. All three kids offer warm yet unassuming hellos to their mom before plopping down to watch television.

I wondered aloud if the kids recognize the eminence of Geri Allen and Wallace Roney as world-renowned jazz figures or do they just see them as their parents? “They see us as Mom and Dad,” Allen says, proudly. “They’re very aware of the significance of Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Miles Davis, though. We take them with us to performances. The children are around the music, and they experience it as an organic part of growing up.”

Allen says she’s teaching Barbara piano lessons, per her daughter’s request, while Wally is seriously investigating the drums and he also plays trumpet. As for Laila, her musical interests are translating into tap dancing. “It’s exciting to see our kids gravitate towards music on their own,” Allen says. “They’re not being coerced into it. Perhaps they see that music gives Wallace and me lot of satisfaction.”

"Geri was and is a divine prism of pure heart and artistry. She conjured sonic rainbows, beaming new color spectrums out of plain black and white keys, and perpetually revealed new aspects of that constant creative sun at the center of her mighty musical orbit. Geri tirelessly spread that wondrous multi-faceted light to audiences, band-mates and students around the world.  I feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to bask and share in her glow. "Far sooner than we ever imagined, she has moved on, to merge - I'm sure in her own original way- with the eternal source of all art and light. "Though her departure has left a gaping absence in the music, and the hearts of everyone who knew her, Geri's life-sound will emanate forever...increasing and enlightening the musical expanse of our shared humanity." 
Esperanza Spalding
"Geri, I have no words. You have rendered me speechless once again. Your wisdom and grace in life and death have touched me more than you'll ever know. You are a sage, a truly special spirit, now happily soaring freely. In reflection, I can't help but wishing I had been even more present, even more loving and even more patient while in your presence. You are an inspiring maverick and an exemplary creator that I'm proud to have been able to call my friend and bandmate. You've positively touched so many and my life and art will always reflect your vision and influence. I wish we had more time together to discover and explore, or chat and laugh, but I am the better for having already basked in your brilliance. Thank you for your AMAZING gifts. I am comforted in knowing that we all have an abiding journey and I am confident that we will re-encounter.  I love you, Sis. Peace and eternal light, always..."
Terri Lyne Carrington
"I first met Geri when she was a student at Howard. She would take the train up to my house in Brooklyn for lessons. Even then it was apparent that Geri heard some things musically that others did not. In 1994 we performed a duo piano concert at the Caramoor Festival in New York and I realized how fearless she was and at the same time how focused she was. It was a lesson that I took to heart. Geri is not only a great musician, composer and pianist, she is a giant and will be sorely missed."
Kenny Barron
"It was a pleasure and an honor to know Ms. Geri Allen. A wonderful musician, educator, and beautiful spirit. I felt very grateful to work with her during the recent performances that we had together. She will be greatly missed but her spirit and legacy will live on forever."
McCoy Tyner
"I remember the first time I heard a Geri Allen phrase. She was in the piano chair on a recording, and early into the first track there was an 8 bar piano solo before the melody returned. In a flash, she played the most amazing free wheeling 8 bars full of gesture and nuance. I had never heard anything like it before, and therefore Geri became the pianist I would copy incessantly. There has not been a pianist like Geri Allen in the Pantheon of Jazz. She was the one that pulled together all of the histories, from Mary Lou Williams and Erroll Garner to Cecil Taylor and M-Base. She made the newest language on the piano. It was the sound that attracted so many of my peers. She could turn a corner with a phrase and make the car feel like it was balancing on two wheels. She could whip up energy while comping for someone that I'm sure made the soloist feel like they were levitating. And most of all, as a loving colleague, she nurtured so many of us. Gently urging us towards our destiny meanwhile being the best example we had for 'how to do it.' She is a God."
Jason Moran
"I want to tell you that You are a beautiful light that has touched so many lives, including mine. Every musical moment we've shared has been memorable. From the time we played together as an all female group, with Terri Lyne, Esperanza, and young Grace Kelly, to our duo at Christal DeHaan's amazing mansion, to honoring Mary Lou Williams at the Kennedy Center, to our concert last December 2nd at The Music Hall in Detroit along with our workshop at the Carr Center. You moved me with your gentle yet precise touch on the piano, I could feel your sensitivity, your grace. Yes Geri, your grace. You ARE Grace itself. I'm with you Geri, sitting beside you, holding your hand. Can you feel it. And I know that you are wrapped in the grace of God and all His heavenly Angels. I know that LOVE surrounds you, and that you are filled with a wondrous PEACE through the presence of your children, your babies, your warrior sister, Ora, and a multitude of family and friends. The world has been blessed because of you, I have been blessed because of you. Know that I love you deeply dearest Geri! Thank you for the opportunity to stand in your light, to see the world through your musical eyes. Thank you for connecting "A Child is Born" with "Silent Night". Thank you Geri Allen. I love you."
Dee Dee Bridgewater
"The first time I met Geri was some time around 1980. I was playing a gig with Sam Rivers and she came into the dressing room to say hello. After exchanging a few pleasantries she told me she was working on her Masters Degree and that her dissertation was on the music of the great instrumentalist, composer and innovator, Eric Dolphy. We had a wonderful conversation about his work and before she left she offered to give me a copy of a transcription she had done of one of his complex solos, which I still have. The skill it took to hear and notate this solo in detail left a big impression on me and her interest in his music told me that here was a musician that was searching for a very personal musical path. She moved to Brooklyn, New York in 1982 and around that time Steve Coleman and I went to her apartment and spent the afternoon playing music together. had a deep understanding of the history of the piano tradition and was one of the first of her generation to draw on the unique styles of pianists such as Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Herbie Nichols and Andrew Hill. Out of all of this blossomed a personal voice that was to influence many that followed her. I remember hearing her perform with Ornette Coleman and marveled at how she found a way to integrate the piano into his music.I'm thankful that over the years we had several other opportunities to play together. Geri Allen was a gracious and beautiful person and a courageous and innovative musician. It was a joy to make music with her and we will miss her."
Dave Holland
"Many will speak of her music, her fierceness on the piano, her work as an educator, but I will always remember this; the last we met we talked of many things, we laughed, enjoyed a meal together it was a beautiful day. When it was time for me to head home we hugged and said, "l love you." That is what I will keep with me."
S. Epatha Merkerson

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