Jazz pianist and composer, Geri Allen, is coming to Toronto with her quartet to perform at this year’s Toronto International Jazz Festival on Sunday, June 22nd at 8PM at Nathan Phillips Square. I saw Ms Allen perform in Toronto a few years ago as part of the Toronto Progressive Jazz concert series, at the Glenn Gould Studio, and am looking forward to her performance in Toronto this year.
I caught up with Ms Allen, in a telephone interview at the beginning of June, to find out a bit about her musical process and where she is at, musically, right now. Geri Allen was recently awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and is an Associate Professor of music composition at Howard University in Washington D.C..
I asked her about her process as a composer and as a jazz improviser, which, as it turns out, is highly linked. Her compositions begin very spontaneously, “personality [in the music] will take form and the composition will evolve out of whatever that is”: “all things will take direction based on the journey”. “Often,” Ms Allen says, “I will go to the piano in the early morning and play and record myself. I’ll go back later and take time to review things. Sometimes there are things that immediately ring clearly to me and I use them as a jumping off point for composition, and then I get to be more specific about these ideas. But the way it starts off is very improvisational”.
Geri Allen is doing a lot of composing right now. As inspiration, she is listening to John Coltrane and Alice Coltrane. “I listen to [John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme”] religiously right now. It’s very inspiring and healing and everything that music could be. When I put the music on, the vibration of it is immediately comforting, and at the same time, it’s an inspiration. That greatness in his music filters into every aspect of your work, and inspires you to try to be the best musician you can be”.
As for what inspires her solos,
“It’s all about “spontaneous composition: it’s the core of the language of jazz. When I do my solo, I’m responding to what’s going on around me. Take my quartet, for instance. My soloing is very much informed by everyone’s contribution based on the language of jazz. Each person’s unique personal experience is going into that. We all have the knowledge base of the language of music which is a fundamental place to start.
I am informed by all of these amazing experiences I’ve had playing with amazing musicians, like Herbie Hancock. My drummer, who is in his early twenties and has just come to NY, is also very knowledgeable about the language of music and jazz and he’s very mature. His whole experience is informed by his generation, including hip hop and other influences like tap dancing. Many of the great jazz drummers were tap dancers and vice versa. So my solo is really affected by each one of my musical comrades in the performance. Playing jazz is very much a community experience. It would be different if I were playing solo piano, when it was just all my own personal view, filtered through my own pain.”
I asked Ms Allen where she saw jazz going in the next 10 years. The musicians in her band right now are quite young, and they give her a sense of the future possibilities. Ms Allen explained that these young musicians have been exposed to jazz since a young age and it shows in how they play: their sound is so mature because they’ve been listening to the music since they were babies. “I, as a young person,” said Ms Allen, “was informed by my father, who was a huge jazz fan, as well, so I would hear music as a baby.” She added that some young jazz musicians are becoming informed by quality in other genres, and using that as an inspiration as well as being inspired by more traditional jazz; there is considerable freedom in jazz, but the delivery of the music is based on discipline and preparation.
“I also think that the intensity of these times, in terms of how difficult things are in the world right now, will also have an effect,” she revealed. “Music will have a huge part in comforting people on more pervasive level somehow. I think we’ll see these young people finding ways to really inform their playing. Jazz has always been about freedom and struggle. Music appeals to people in times of difficulty and these young people can come with that in a way. The music should be very important for humanity. Jazz is going to be there in a way it has always been: to serve that aspect of people’s need in times of difficulty and at the same time, it may be in a very powerful way, that’s never been seen before.”
When asked what here dream band would be, Ms Allen responded that her dream band right now, is the people she’s playing with on a daily basis. “I’m a person that lives in the moment,” said Ms Allen, “The musicians that are willing to spend their time to invest in our music, and share that opportunity, are wonderful. After all the wonderful opportunities I’ve had, I’m very open to new opportunities as they present themselves. But I’m in the moment right now and these guys are invested in what we have to offer.”
Torontonians will have the opportunity to share in that moment with the band on June 22nd. Advance tickets are available online at Ticketmaster for $30. The Geri Allen quartet performs with the Alto Summit at the Festival Mainstage.
