Pianist Geri Allen Nominated For 2011 NAACP Image Award for “Outstanding Jazz Album”
ACCLAIMED COMPOSER/PIANIST/SCHOLAR GERI ALLEN
NOMINATED FOR A 2011 NAACP IMAGE AWARD –
GERI ALLEN & TIMELINE – LIVE – “OUTSTANDING JAZZ ALBUM”
Composer/pianist Geri Allen has been nominated for a 2011 NAACP Image Award in the category of “Outstanding Jazz Album” for her most recent Motéma Music release, Geri Allen & Timeline – Live.
The NAACP Image Awards,
currently celebrating its 42nd anniversary, are presented each year to
honor outstanding people of color in film, television, music and
literature. In conjunction, the ceremony offers awards to individuals or
groups who help promote social injustice through creative efforts.
Members of the NAACP vote on the awards and the process is similar to
that of the Grammys and Oscars.
For Allen, the nomination comes after a banner year in 2010, with two debut releases for Motéma Music: Flying Toward The Sound, a solo piano work inspired by Cecil Taylor, McCoy Tyner and Herbie Hancock, as well as Geri Allen & Timeline – Live.
The releases collectively have garnered critical acclaim from the
media, selected on the “Best Jazz CDs of 2010” lists from outlets such
as the Village Voice, Detroit Free Press, JazzTimes and National Public Radio‘s “50 Favorite Albums of 2010,” among others.
The first “live” recording of Allen’s 30-year career, Timeline Live
as 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, and can
best be described as a radical jazz and tap dance quartet album.
Geri Allen & Timeline – Live
reveals a populist and gregarious side of Allen’s musicality. Allen’s
Timeline quartet, which has been touring successfully in the US and
Europe for the past two years, 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 veteran
bassist Kenny Davis, and brilliant new talents Kassa Overall on
multi-percussion set and tap sensation Maurice Chestnut.
The complete awards ceremony will be presented on March 4th and can be viewed on Fox Television Network at 8pm EST/7pm CST.
Allen is currently working on her next Motéma Music album, set for release in late 2011.
