GERI ALLEN. WHO? OH WOW!

When you’re a 77 year old jazz musician, you find it difficult to keep up with all the bright young new kids on the block who have their own scene and their own coterie.

Paths don’t tend to cross and I’ve been mildly depressed for example by the number of young saxophonists who I’m told have never heard of DON WELLER or BOBBY WELLINS.

It’s a rare piece of fortune when paths DO cross and the meeting results in a wonderfully rejuvenating chance to play some fresh and challenging music with a (relatively) young turk like RILEY STONE-LONERGAN. Our trio QOW (with bassist EDDIE MYER) has been together for a while now and we will be back in the studio at the end of the month to finish recording material for our second album which should be out in the autumn.

This opportunity to brush up my style and technique in a new context has been a musical tonic.

Playing is the thing. But people often ask me what I LISTEN to these days. I fear senility has robbed me of the energy to diligently check out all the trendy stuff on radio and record every week. So I would answer that I still prefer things from LESTER YOUNG to PHAROAH SANDERS through Bird, Rollins and Coltrane. And I tend to assume nobody of importance has slipped under my radar.

But this is too smug and lazy. I have remained in ignorance of several musicians of great stature for whatever reason and what an absolute gas it is when I finally discover them!

A case in point is the late genius (she died in 2017 at the age of only 60 ) pianist, composer and educator GERI ALLEN.

I pricked up my ears when I heard the inventive pianist on DEWEY REDMAN’s album Living on the edge. It was GERI ALLEN. I then came across her on several other recordings under somebody else’s name. And the piano playing always caught my attention.

She is modern, adventurous and experimental but with a clear love of the history of jazz which shows in her playing. As a music student, she chose ERIC DOLPHY as the subject of her master’s dissertation.

But her first love and influence seems to have been MARY LOU WILLIAMS with whom she was later able to perform and record.

MARY LOU of course has a pedigree going right back to the pre-war days of the legendary jam sessions at the Cherry Blossom club in Kansas City.

Indeed, if you look carefully, you will spot GERI playing a part based on the character of MARY LOU in Robert Altman’s 1996 film Kansas City.

GERI was married for some years to trumpeter WALLACE RONEY with whom she collaborated on many musical ventures.

She was herself a prolific composer and famously wrote the song For the lullaby of the nations in the wake of 9/11.

Her performance projects were very varied in style and instrumentation and, for my jazz ears, some are a bit wacky.

I have written before in these “musings” about my love of the piano trio and it will come as no surprise therefore that my very favourite GERI ALLEN recordings are with just bass and drums.

It is impossible to define her fluent, one-off pianistics but I suppose I hear her building on and taking forward the work of JAKI BYARD, HERBIE HANCOCK and ANDREW HILL. 

She used several rhythm sections, including DAVE HOLLAND and JACK DE JOHNETTE

and the famous team of RON CARTER and TONY WILLIAMS. This latter looks irresistible on paper but I rushed out to buy their album only to be slightly disappointed. By the time they went into the studio, TONY was into his flirtation with rock and was weighed down by his large yellow kit and sounding a bit leaden. Apologies if you find this heretical but I’m afraid there is just no comparison with the light, springy touch he brought to the Miles Davis quintet when he was in his teens.

Far and away the greatest trio music GERI produced was with the no-holds-barred freedom and creativity of CHARLIE HADEN and PAUL MOTIAN. They performed and recorded a lot together. Difficult to pick a winner but my vote would go to Live at the Village Vanguard captured by DIW records in December 1990.

GERI played and composed and a very important strand in her life was also teaching. She held down the job of director of jazz studies at the University of Pittsburgh for a number of years..

I’m probably preaching to the converted – you may have been thoroughly conversant with the jazz input of GERI ALLEN long before I stumbled on it. If not however, do check her out. A good further introduction would be something I found on Youtube: a short video film made about her by singer CARMEN LUNDY called ‘AS I KNEW HER’.