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PITTSBURGH JAZZ

 

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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Replies to This Discussion

 
"Geri Allen was a wonderful human being...an elegant quiet, private, unassuming powerhouse. Her way was peaceful and patient; her spirit was committed to mentoring, teaching and exploring possibilities.  Geri was authentic and her artistry impeccably refined and defined. May my friend who embraced tranquility throughout life rest in divine peace...she will be greatly missed."
Dianne Reeves
"Geri was one of the great contributors to jazz, a jazz master. I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to create music together with her. She touched a lot of people with her distinctive voice on piano and as a person. She will be missed but her legacy will continue. Love you Geri."
Jack DeJohnette
"We are all in shock, as Geri and I had many conversations upon her return from Italy. I asked her was she tired, had she rested enough to write the preface to my Transcription Book, Marseille. Not a word from her about her illness. She spent some of her last strength writing the preface. This act of hers will remain with me forever. May The Almighty Creator bestow on her the Ultimate Peace."
Ahmad Jamal
"There has been a definable language for all styles of jazz. Geri Allen gained respect 
and influenced generations of musicians across all styles with a style that was never able 
to be defined as anything but singular. She funneled every nuance of jazz history in her 
playing and was able to always sound completely fresh."
Christian McBride

"As Geri Allen's life continues to unfold, her eternal journey will be a constant act 

of indestructible creativity...We'll be with her all the way!"
                                                            Wayne Shorter
"Geri Allen and I have been friends and colleagues for 30 years. We met in the mid-80's when we were forming and developing the M-Base Collective with several other musicians in Brooklyn. Her voice was so very unique. She was a very sensitive person and that sensitivity came through her music in shimmering waves of brilliance."
Robin Eubanks
"Geri Allen was all music -- she transcended labels and gender. Her respect for the tradition
and history of our music was immense. She was a poet on the keyboard and brought a
purity of intent, focus and fierce determination to the music she played. Geri's palate and
harmonic concept was very beautiful, elevated. Her playing was peerless on the two albums
we made together; 'Lift Every Voice' and 'Jumping the Creek.' On stage, she played facing the drums and bass, and could look into their eyes to communicate. Since my back was to her, I once asked her how she and I communicated. She said, 'sonically.' It was my honor
to have had that sacred, sonic communication with her."
Charles Lloyd
"Geri Allen's music will always remind us that we do not have to relinquish our cultural anchors in order to engage in courageous explorations. Her brilliance will inspire generations to come. Deepest condolences to Geri's father, brother, and children. ¡Geri Allen Presente!"
Angela Davis
 "Geri Allen always gave me the greatest joy in performance. Her subtle, yet powerfully transformative energies stirred my soul. She had the extraordinary ability to dig deep and navigate the hidden harmonic undercurrents of the music while simultaneously delivering the sweet spots. Calling her gifts genius is an understatement."
Cassandra Wilson
"'Eternity is in Love with the creations of time,' said William Blake. Geri is one of eternities special creations. Throughout her life, she was able to deliver the all encompassing reach of eternities passion, power, grace and evolution with stunning poise. She is now delivered back to eternity and we are forever grateful for her gifts in our time."
Sean Jones
"30 years ago, Charlie Haden introduced me to the music of Geri Allen. I still recall the mutual excitement and enthusiasm in the room as we listened to Geri's incredible piano solos. When I arrived in New York in '91, Geri was one of the first to embrace me, calling me for gigs, taking me under her wing, so to speak.  There were others who filled a similar role but none quite like Geri. She was kind and dignified, with a quiet strength that often reminded me of my mother Alice. I'll never forget the first times performing with her and feeling elevated by her accompaniment, like my feet were literally rising off the stage a little. I could play one or two notes and her musical response could evoke all the answers to the universe. And she did it all with such ease, grace and strength. I am forever grateful for the many years and many opportunities I had to know and work with Geri. She was a beautiful, warm, and soulful friend. Her music, her sound, her approach to the piano and improvisation was completely and totally her own. The love and enthusiasm and excitement I felt for Geri from day one will continue on throughout my entire life."
Ravi Coltrane
"The music of Geri Allen flows freely from her heart with an unmeasurable amount of love. I can remember Geri being at a sound check attending to her motherly duties while checking the sound of the piano. That's a lot of love. She is simply an amazing spiritual being. Her love will continue in all of our hearts forever! God Bless You!!" 
Charnett Moffett

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