Instruments Piano Role Composer Years active 1982–present Spouse Wallace Roney | Associated acts Timeline Music group Living Colour Name Geri Allen | |
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Born June 12, 1957 (age 66)
Pontiac, Michigan United States ( 1957-06-12 ) Genres Jazz, post-bop, blues music, funk, gospel Occupation(s) Musician
Professor
Record producer Labels Motema Music
Polygram
Storyville
Blue Note
Telarc Albums Grand River Crossings, The Nurturer, A Child Is Born, The Gathering, Live at the Village Vanguard | ||
The pace report a motown homecoming the geri allen interview with danilo perez
Geri Allen (June 12, 1957 – June 27, 2017) was an American jazz pianist and composer.
Contents
- The pace report a motown homecoming the geri allen interview with danilo perez
- Early life and career
- Later life and career
- As sidewoman
- References
A Detroit native, Allen worked with many jazz musicians, including Ornette Coleman, Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette, and Charles Lloyd. She cited her primary influences to be her parents, Mount Vernell Allen Jr, and Barbara Jean Allen, and her primary musical influences to be mentors Marcus Belgrave, Donald Walden, and Betty Carter, as well as pianists Herbie Hancock, Mary Lou Williams, Hank Jones, Alice Coltrane, Cecil Taylor, Thelonious Monk, McCoy Tyner, Bud Powell, and mentor Billy Taylor.
Allen was an Associate Professor of Music and the Director of the Jazz Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh.
Early life and career
Allen was born in Pontiac, Michigan and educated in the Detroit Public Schools.
Later life and career
In 2006, Allen was commissioned to compose "For the Healing of the Nations", a Sacred Jazz Suite for Voices, written in tribute to the victims, survivors and their families of the September 11 attacks. The suite was performed by Howard University's Afro-Blue Jazz Choir, under the direction of Connaitre Miller. Oliver Lake, Craig Harris, Andy Bey, Dwight Andrews, Mary Stallings, Carmen Lundy, Nnenna Freelon, Jay Hoggard, and other musicians also participated. The poetry was contributed by Sandra Turner-Barnes.
Allen had been a longtime resident of Montclair, New Jersey before moving to Pittsburgh Pennsylvania in 2012 after being offered the position of Director of the Jazz Studies program at the University of Pittsburgh.
Allen died on June 27, 2017, two weeks after her 60th birthday, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania after suffering from cancer.
As sidewoman
With Roy Brooks
With Betty Carter
With Ornette Coleman
With Steve Coleman
With Buddy Collette
With Charlie Haden
With Oliver Lake
With Charles Lloyd
With Frank Lowe
With Paul Motian
With Greg Osby
With Dewey Redman
With Gregory Charles Royal
With Woody Shaw
With John Stubblefield
With Gary Thomas
With Trio 3 (Oliver Lake, Reggie Workman & Andrew Cyrille)
With the Mary Lou Williams Collective