Pianist Geri Allen To Debut 2 Recordings on Motéma Music (Coming March 30th & June 8th, 2010)

Flying Toward The Sound,
(in stores and online March 30) 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.”

Allen has had numerous prestigious awards and honors, the most recent
being a 2008 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for Music Composition,
which allowed her to take the time needed to fully develop and record
this ambitious, solo piano excursion. The suite, “Refractions: Flying
Toward The Sound,”comprises eight of the nine tracks on this release. A
very personal compositional embrace of her son Wallace serves as the
closing opus, aptly titled “Your Pure Self… Mother to Son.”

The first three of the eight distinctive ‘refractions’ of the suite
“Flying Toward The Sound” pay homage to Allen’s three piano
inspirations through a blend of scored and improvised abstracted
passages. Refraction I: “Dancing Mystic Poets @ Twylight,” opens with a
suggestion of the swing feel that was crucial to Cecil Taylor’s early
development. This opening refraction, like her takes on Tyner (“Flying
Toward the Sound”) and Hancock (“Red Velvet in Winter”), is more cinema
than snapshot, with a moving lens focusing on the varied ephemera of
creativity and ultimately on Allen’s own richly insightful originality.

Ms. Allen will support Flying Toward The Sound
with solo performances at museums and concert halls in both in the US
and abroad.  Her concert length solo piano presentation shares the
stage with beautiful film projections created by famed photographer,
filmmaker and performance artist Carrie Mae Weems. Weems collaborated
closely with Allen over the past year to create a very personal, poetic
and surreal filmic statement centered on themes from Ms. Allen’s life
as an African American woman, musician, daughter, mother and educator. 
A taste of the film imagery from the live shows is included as enhanced
content on the Flying Toward the Sound
CD in the form of three short video segments of imagery set to three of
Allen’s compositions: “Flying Toward the Sound”, “Red Velvet in Winter”
and “Faith Carriers of Life.”

The music of Flying Toward The Sound
takes us deep into Allen’s unique artistry.  The detailed liner notes
by Griffith further illuminate this journey as that of an artist who
“comes from a culture that celebrates flight as a metaphor for
freedom.”  The evocative imagery of the CD package (consisting of
stills from the companion art films by Weems) provide visual
counterpoint to the metaphors of flight built into the music, which
unfolds from track to track as a seamless overlay of composition and
interpretive improvisation, often flexible in tempo but always
maintaining Allen’s keen feel for rhythm, whether suggested or
articulated.

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
featureAllen’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.

“Maurice is completely integrated into the band,” Allen observes. “And
the drum and the dance are at the core of how this group is
constructed. We heavily acknowledge the influences of bebop, and both
Maurice and Kassa reference their hip hop influences. With master
bassist Kenny Davis holding it all down we are all creatively free to
embrace the entire spectrum of everything we love about this great
music we call Jazz.  In the end, we’re marrying the dance, the drums,
and our collective experiences on the wings of improvised music.”

Born in Pontiac, Michigan, Allen is one of the first musicians of her
generation to move gracefully to and from a diverse array of jazz
universes, including those as wide ranging as that of free jazz
innovator Ornette Coleman, jazz singer Betty Carter and the free jazz
of M-Base Collective. 2009-10 also finds Allen engaged in the year-long
Centennial Celebration of Mary Lou Williams.  “I have always known I
could embrace the entire spectrum of jazz and have my freedom” explains
Allen.

Flying Toward The Sound (co-produced by Kunle Mwanga) and Geri Allen & Timeline – Live
(co-produced by Allen’s long-term manager, Ora Harris) are the latest
in Allen’s long list of accomplishments, both rare in magnitude and
deep in artistry, and they handily reveal the far ends of the beautiful
musical compass that is Geri Allen.