Category Geri Allen

Geri Allen 1957-2017
Pianist, composer and educator Geri Allen, who has died at the age of 60, had her own sound. Her close-interval chord voicings and sparkling single-note lines couldn’t be anyone else. Influenced by Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Monk, Tommy Flanagan, Bud Powell and Cecil Taylor, she explained her style to writer Howard Mandel in 1993: ‘A […]

MCA Power Trio @ Cadogan Hall, 19th November 2016
The ‘cry’ takes many forms – you can hear it in Aretha Franklin, Carlos Santana, Miles, Albert Ayler and reedsman David Murray too, and it was very much in evidence during Saturday’s electrifying London Jazz Festival gig at the Cadogan Hall. What initially seemed a strange choice of venue for this bass-less supergroup turned out […]

David Murray/Geri Allen/Terri Lyne Carrington: Perfection
Either a new Geri Allen or David Murray album would be a cause for celebration, but now the pianist and saxophonist have got together and released Perfection with the very welcome addition of Terri Lyne Carrington on drums. And if that wasn’t enough, the title track is a previously-unrecorded composition by the late great Ornette Coleman. […]