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A tribute to one of the great and profound pianists, composers and educators in my lifetime, the late Geri Allen, who passed away in the last week of June, having just turned 60. On In The Moment Radio, we are proud to present one of the great recordings I have ever been a part of, with the Mary Lou Willams Collective, featuring the much loved and highly influential Geri Allen, bassist Kenny Davis, and legendary drummer Andrew Cyrille. The trailblazing Mary Lou Williams wrote over 350 compositions and on this program the Mary Lou Williams Collective performed one of her most important works, Zodiac Suite. The Mary Lou Williams Collective revisited this work in 2005, for the Mary Lou Williams Foundation's Mary Records. Our recording, took place April 6th, 2007 at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco, as part of the 8th annual SFJAZZ Festival Spring Season. The Zodiac Suite has only been performed in its entirety a handful of times. Jim Santella, in All About Jazz, described the studio recording of the Collective in this manner.. "Zodiac Suite: Revisited combines traditional elements from jazz history with the kind of progressive energy that has always followed great artists." One of those great artists is the widely influential and certainly underrated Geri Allen, who will be sorely missed. Geri made her mark as an adventurous 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 were with drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, in separate trios featuring bassist Esperanza Spalding and tenor saxophonist David Murray. Geri was always a ceaselessly exploratory musician, constantly probing for new harmonics and dynamics. Geri'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 recorded with Ornette. As indicated by Anastasia Tsioulcas and David Adler, on NPR, the piano has had little use in Coleman's free-floating music, because it tended to impose a conventional chordal structure. This was not true with Allen on the bandstand. She played a multifaceted role, in terms of textures and counterpoint. Geri's deep harmonic knowledge and her melodic voice, too, sometimes moving in unison with Coleman, brought a clear and unique intensity that remains unique in Ornette's output. The pulse and momentum of her performances and compositions point clearly toward a rhythmic sensibility and influence heard from such celebrated pianists as Craig Taborn and Vijay Iyer.
Please check out KPFA's Art Sato and his great interview with Geri from 1988. It will remain on the KPFA archives until July 15th. Go to https://kpfa.org/episode/in-your-ear-july-1-2017/.
- Genre
- Jazz & Blues