2011 Apollo Artists Geri Allen
Geri Allen
Curator and Performer, Apollo Music Cafe, May 13 & 14, 2011. Geri Allen is an internationally-known composer and pianist. Since 1982, she has recorded, performed or collaborated with artists as diverse as Ravi Coltrane, Dianne Reeves, Liz Wright, and Simone, in a celebration of the life and music of Nina Simone, Donald Walden, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Bill Cosby, Mal Waldron, Sir Simon Rattle, Lee Konitz, Vernon Reid, Jackie Hillsman and Peter Bernard, JoAnne Akalaitis, Clark Terry, George Shirley, Carrie Mae Weems, Ron Carter and Tony Williams, Carmen Lundy, Lester Bowie's From the Root To The Source, Kevin Maynor, Meshell Ndegeocello, Howard University's Afro Blue, Dewey Redman, Jimmy Cobb, Sandra Turner-Barnes, Marcus Belgrave, Betty Carter, Marian McPartland, Roy Brooks, Charlie Haden and Paul Motion, Terri Lynn Carrington, Hal Wilner, Mino Cinelu, Dr. Billy Taylor, Joan Rivers, and Mary Wilson and the Supremes.
Professor Allen has released a number of recordings under her own name. These include: The Nurturer, Eyes in the Back of Your Head, Maroons, Homegrown, The Printmakers, Twenty One, The Gathering, The Life of a Song, and, most recently, the ambitious and critically acclaimed Timeless Portraits and Dreams. A newly released Timeline, Live presents Ms. Allen on piano, Kenny Davis on bass, Kassa Overall on drums, and tap percussionist Maurice Chestnut. This is a rhythmically innovative work and has just been released on Ms. Allen's own label. Geri Allen is a Motema artist, and the forthcoming "Refractions: Flying Toward the Sound," a work for solo piano which she composed during the period of her Guggenheim Fellowship, will be released by Motema in the new year.