Pianist Geri Allen Nominated for 2011 NAACP Image Award for “Outstanding Jazz Album”
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 Grammy and Oscar awards.
For Allen, who is an Associate Professor of Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation at the University of Michigan’s School Of Music Theatre & Dance, 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 was recorded at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio, and at Reed College, in Portland, Oregon. These two exciting live performances feature Allen’s working quartet nimbly and ferociously interacting with each other, reinventing the dialogue between the dance and the drum. 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.
Geri Allen’s new Christmas CD for Motéma Music will be released in the fall of 2011. The CD, a joyous celebration of the spirit of Christmas, features familiar classics and ancient favorites performed on vintage Fender Rhodes, Farfisa organ, Hohner clavinet, concert celeste, and a wonderful Fazioli F-228 Grand piano.