Geri Allen - RIP

[Ian Thumwood]

Really shocked to learn of the passing of Geri Allen, one of the greatest jazz musicians to emerge since the 1980's and a pianist who I have always enjoyed both on record and in concert where I have heard her with such diverse musicians as Tom Bancroft and Charles Lloyd. Of course, she made her name with the classic trio with Charlie Haden and Paul Motian, both of whom are also no longer with us.

I really loved her playing which blended a very light touch with incisive swing. Her paying had an immediate appeal and a unique voice. The music she produced always seemed full of joy. She always seemed to associate herself with more creative musicians like Ornette Coleman and Oliver Lake and she is exactly the kind of pianist I feel there are all too few of these days. Probably her greatest performance on record was the live set by Betty Carter called "Feed the fire" where she was part of a trio which backed the legendary singer which also included Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette.

This is incredibly sad news.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

A huge huge loss. It was only posted yesterday that she was "gravely ill". She was everything that jazz today should be and I can highly recommend (if its still up) Alyn's live Jazz Library with her, intelligent, sharp, strong and with some wonderful music intertwined with her thoughts. She was mentored by Marcus Belgrave, again demonstrating the vital importance of " less sung" figures.


WBGO obit:
"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."

[Alyn_Shipton]

My Jazz Library is still there: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00w5lv0
And we hope to remember her on Monday's Jazz Now, which returns to more recent sounds after this Monday's stroll through Canadian musical memorabilia. (Interesting how many of those figures had been on Jazz Notes back in the 90s - Oscar Peterson, Oliver Jones, Bob McConnell and the Boss Brass...made me quite nostalgic for 20 years ago...)

[Serial_Apologist]

My Jazz Library is still there: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00w5lv0
And we hope to remember her on Monday's Jazz Now, which returns to more recent sounds after this Monday's stroll through Canadian musical memorabilia. (Interesting how many of those figures had been on Jazz Notes back in the 90s - Oscar Peterson, Oliver Jones, Bob McConnell and the Boss Brass...made me quite nostalgic for 20 years ago...)

Thanks Alyn.

Some of us will remember her duo performance with Courtney Pine on the main stage at one of the early Outside-In festivals in Crawley in the early 1990s like it was yesterday. Luckily I still have a cassette of the subsequent broacast. For me Geri was at her peak at that time, still very much M-based in her thinking, plotting one of many still possible futures, and Courtney really soared over her harmonically compressed funk underpinnings, with time signatures through and across which she almost nonchalantly worked her arching lines. Later work returned to that complexity as one always hoped, so losing her is such a sadness.

[Tenor Freak]

Found out this morning via Vijay Iyer's Twitter feed. Yes, an enormous loss to the music, she was taken from us far too soon. Still have warm memories of seeing the trio with Motian and Haden at the Turner Sims in the mid-90s. RIP.