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About Geri Allen
It is a sign not only of greatness but vitality when artists repeatedly challenge themselves and their listeners through works that both affirm and expand the legacies of their art form. Geri Allen meets this standard. For all that she has achieved as a composer, performer, and scholar, her two debut releases for Motma Music- Flying Toward The Sound and Geri Allen & Timeline--Live- vividly document her boundless curiosity, innovation, and commitment to growth and diversity in every aspect of her artistry.
Flying Toward The Sound
Flying Toward The Sound, (released on March 30th) is a monumental addition to the solo piano canon. Conceptually ambitious, virtuosic in its execution and spiritual in its essence, this deeply moving recording reveals Allen in visionary communion with two fine Fazioli pianofortes. As distinguished jazz scholar and author, Farah Jasmine Griffith explains in her liner notes: “Geri Allen conceived of this project in relation to three modern jazz pianists in whom she finds inspiration: Cecil Taylor, McCoy Tyner and Herbie Hancock. Allen does not play their music; instead she plays toward it, around it, through it to her own unique voicing... resulting in a flight of light and sound." Ms. Allen comments that, “These three pianists are foundational in terms of the modern piano. They informed my choices in abstract ways for this suite. It's not like playing transcriptions; it's more about refracting the admiration and love I have for them through my own muse, and letting the music reflect the ways they've influenced me through the years."
Geri Allen & Timeline--Live Offering a completely different perspective on the topic of time and space is the music on Geri Allen & Timeline--Live, the companion release to Flying Toward The Sound, which was released this month on Motma. The Timeline band represents another facet of the inspirational Geri Allen, in which she embraces the rhythmic grounding and, in fact, the very origins of syncopation through jazz in motion, with an extraordinary ensemble featuring bassist Kenny Davis, drummer Kassa Overall and tap percussionist Maurice Chestnut.
Geri Allen & Timeline--Live, is the first “live" recording of Allen's twenty-year career, and was recorded at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio, and Reed College, in Portland, Oregon. These two exciting live performances feature Allen's working quartet nimbly and ferociously interacting with each other reinventing the dialog between the dance and the drums. Timeline celebrates the dance and the music together as one.
Continue reading about both releases here.
For more information contact All About Jazz.
