Geri Allen at the Village Vanguard in 2011.
John Malveaux of
writes:
Pianist Geri Allen 2006 CD "Timeless Portraits and Dreams" included LIFT EVERY VOICE & SING by legendary opera tenor George Shirley. Hear NPR story:
National Public Radio
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 Tuesday in Philadelphia. She was
60, and had 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.
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