Jazz Connection Magazine

Harry Allen Brings His Swinging Mainstream Tenor Style Back To Jazz's Forefront

Harry Allen, above, performing at the Sacramento

Jazz Jubilee recently. He is one of the few modern-

day tenor players who exhibit the "classical" sound

while consistently making joyous, infectious and

stimulating jazz for the past sixteen years.

Performance photos copyright by Stephen Fratallone/Jazz Connection Magazine

Everybody's just wild about Harry. But some may be asking, "Harry who?" The answer: Harry Allen, that is.

For those jazz aficionados who love the melodic, mainstream approach to the tenor saxophone - better known as the "classical" sound - Harry Allen has been its reigning prince for the past 16 years.

The 39-year-old award-winning tenor saxophonist with the golden tone and swinging musical imagination has been a popular draw at jazz clubs and jazz festivals worldwide, frequently touring the United States, Europe, and the Far East. He has performed with Rosemary Clooney, Flip Phillips, Scott Hamilton, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Kenny Burrell, Bucky and John Pizzarelli, Gus Johnson, Jeff Hamilton, Terry Gibbs, Warren Vache Jr., and he has recorded with Tony Bennett, Johnny Mandel, Hank Jones, Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Barron, Dave McKenna, Don Caymmi, Larry Goldings, George Mraz, Jake Hanna, Lewis Nash, Al Foster, and just recently with Howard Alden, among others.

A BMG recording artist, Allen has over thirty albums to his credit. His albums have been recognized for their excellence. Three of Allen's CDs have won Gold Disc Awards from Japan's Swing Journal Magazine, and his CD, Tenors Anyone?, won both the Gold Disc Award and the New Star Award. His recordings have made the top ten list for Favorite New Releases in Swing Journal Magazine's Readers' Poll and Jazz Journal International's Critics' Poll for 1997, and Eu Nao Quero Dancar (I Wont Dance), the third Gold Disc Award winner, was voted second for Album of the Year for 1993 by Swing Journal Magazine's Readers' Poll.

Even jazz critic Gene Lees sings Allen's praises, writing: "Stan Getz was once asked his idea of the perfect tenor saxophone soloist. His answer was, 'My technique, Al Cohn's ideas, and Zoot's (Sims) time.' The fulfillment of that ideal may well be embodied in... Harry Allen."

"I have a little bit of a recognition problem because some of my recordings are not being released in the States," answered Allen after he played a blistering set as a member of Howard Alden's East Coast All-Stars at the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee this past Memorial Day weekend. "I've been very lucky to be with a major record label for the last ten years, BMG Japan. There are very few jazz artists these days that have record contracts. BMG here in the USA released a few of my records before they decided to get out of the jazz business. As a result, a lot of my records have not been released in the United States."

But Allen is doing something to remedy that situation. He's producing some of his own albums and selling them here in the States, he said.

"Because of my contract with BMG Japan, I am not able to record for a U.S. company," Allen explained. "I can do my own productions so long as I insure my records are not distributed in Japan. What I do is I sell my records through my website and at my gigs."

Allen doesn't seem to mind doing that. In fact, it's provided the freedom to market himself in the way he would like, while getting more opportunities to play club dates, he said.

"All the major record companies are either out of business or on the way out," Allen explained. "I don't think it's a bad thing for the music business, actually. The A&R (Artists & Repertoire) people for the major record labels are some of the most ignorant people I've ever met in my life! They know nothing about jazz. They don't know who to sign and then they sign the wrong person. They throw the company's money behind that person. For years, an independent musician couldn't get a job at a jazz club in New York because you had to have major record company sponsorship. That's over now. Record companies are not sponsoring musicians because the companies have spent all their money and they've lost all their money. Now, the clubs have to hire people whom audiences want to hear. Over the course of the last year, I've played at every major club in New York City. I think it's a really good thing for the music that the record companies are on the way out. It's getting back to what the people want, not what the record companies and the critics want."

What Allen has found playing at these jazz clubs are patrons who do not necessarily always clamor for more "modern" approaches to jazz, he said.

"I don't think the people want to hear that stuff," Allen said. "There are some great musicians who play modern music and they have wonderful fan bases, but so do we. There is every bit of an audience, if not more of an audience, for the type of jazz that I play."

It can be argued that the style of jazz that Allen plays, straight-ahead swing, has experienced longevity in the jazz arena as opposed to some of the more contemporary things that are out there.

"One thing I think about is the music I play is happy music," Allen said. "It's happier and it makes people feel good. So, maybe for that reason it has endured longer. Time will tell."

For the past five years, Allen has been leading an exciting quartet that creates some of the most joyful, infectious and stimulating jazz ever heard on the planet Earth. Quartet members are guitarist Joe Cohn, son of the late tenor sax stylist/composer/arranger, Al Cohn; bassist Joel Forbes; and drummer Chuck Riggs.

"I wanted to record with the quartet, but BMG Japan wasn't interested," Allen said. "So I produce and market the quartet recordings on my own. It's actually done a lot in getting work for the quartet."

One of Allen's latest releases with his quartet is simply titled The Harry Allen Quartet. Recorded in April 2003, the twelve-track CD exudes some high-flying jazz coupled with some compelling ballad numbers. (See Harry Allen Quartet CD)

Allen's current CD, Jazz For The Soul, is an album devoted entirely to ballad standards. The concept for this project came from Ray McMahon, who owns a medical journal publishing company and who is a fan of Allen's music. He suggested to the saxophonist to do a ballad album so he could sell them to doctors and other health care professionals through his magazines. McMahon reasoned that a CD filled with the soothing and relaxing sounds of ballad tunes would be perfect for people to listen to in waiting rooms at doctors' offices, according to Allen.

"I said, 'OK, fine, as long as the albums don't go to Japan," Allen said. "That's what we did. We did the record and it's sold through his magazines, on my website and at gigs."

Jazz For The Soul and The Harry Allen Quartet as well as all of Allen's recorded works can be ordered from his official website at www.harryallenjazz.com

As in all his recordings, Allen is making a musical statement that's consistent with his belief of making good music that's inventive rather than innovative.

"I don't agree that music should be innovative," Allen said. "Music should be 'inventive,' and it should be good. Some of the people, especially these days, try to be innovative without being good. What I try to do is to be good. I try to be inventive. I don't want to be a 'lick' player who regurgitates licks that I've learned. I try to be inventive and truly improvise and to be good. If innovation comes, it comes. If it doesn't, it doesn't. It's like what Count Basie said, 'If innovation is thought about, it's no good. It either happens or it doesn't.' I personally haven't heard any innovator in jazz live in my life time. Who was the last innovation in jazz? Eric Dolphy? Who since then? Nobody has found much new to do. Maybe somebody will. I hope somebody will. More than that, I hope if they do, that it's good."

Allen was born in 1966 in Washington, D.C. He and his family moved to California a year later, first settling in Granada Hills and then Northridge, both suburbs

of Los Angeles. When Allen was 11, the family picked up roots once again, this time moving to Burrillville, RI, just outside Providence.

His father, Murray Allen, is a big band drummer who played in the U.S. Navy band along side songwriter Johnny Burke, and who later played with the George Johnson Orchestra, a territory band out of Boston. The senior Allen was also a friend of the late tenor saxophone great and Duke Ellington stalwart, Paul Gonzalves, who became an early musical influence on his son.

"I have a picture of my sister and I sitting on Paul's lap taken at one of the Disneyland concerts," Allen said. "Paul was very much underrated. He was great as anybody." (Gonzalves died in 1974.)

Allen's musical odyssey started as a toddler when he was given a toy saxophone to play by his parents.

"I loved that toy saxophone!" Allen said. "From then on, I always wanted to play the saxophone."

Allen's desire to play the saxophone wouldn't materialize until a few years later, only after he had started taking accordion lessons at age 7.

"I started playing music after an accordion salesman knocked at the door selling accordion lessons," Allen said. "I started out on the accordion, put I still wanted to play the saxophone."

Allen's dream to play the saxophone came a step closer when he turned 11. After persistently bugging his father about it for four years, the senior Allen suggested to his son that if he truly wanted to play the saxophone, he should learn to play the clarinet first.

"I played the clarinet for about a year, all the while still bugging my dad about the sax," Allen said.

At age 12, Allen finally got his wish to play the saxophone, starting out on the tenor.

Allen's father would play records of tenor sax stylists for his son to listen to, most notably Gonzalves and Tom Brownsize, a high school chum.

But the first tenor saxophone stylist that Allen consciously listened to was Scott Hamilton, he said.

Hamilton, a native of Providence, RI, burst on to the jazz scene in the mid-1970s and just floored everyone with his melodic, mainstream approach on the instrument in the vain of Ben Webster and Stan Getz. Hamilton was signed to the Concord Jazz label, and for the past 28 years, he has consistently recorded tasteful, stimulating and swinging jazz albums with his own small groups, with strings, and with a host of luminaries such as diva Rosemary Clooney, Woody Herman, Flip Phillips, Buddy Tate, Joe Venuti, Dick Johnson, Warren Vache, and Ruby Braff, among others.

It was tenor saxophonist Ricky Peters, another Rhode Island native who is good friends with Allen's father, that pointed the young Allen toward Hamilton's direction.

"When Ricky found out I was playing the tenor sax, he said to me to pick up a Scott Hamilton record," Allen recalled. "I did. I heard the sound and approach and I said, 'That's what I want to do.'"

In high school Allen also branched out a bit experimenting with the alto and soprano saxophones, which ultimately were not to his liking, he said.

"Whenever I played any of them, I thought, 'I'd rather be playing tenor,'" Allen said. "I finally gave them all up and concentrated on the tenor."

During the late1970s and early 1980s, jazz fusion was in, while others were proclaiming that "jazz is dead." Hamilton's style of the tenor sax at that time was considered archaic to the "hip" crowd. But that did not deter him from continuing with what he was doing, nor did it keep Allen from following in his path.

"By the time I was old enough to be influenced by other musicians and 'other' approaches to jazz and pop, I was so hooked on the sound," Allen said.

To his peers, Allen felt at times like he was the odd man in the crowd for liking the mainstream approach championed by Hamilton and others like him, he said.

"I really didn't care," Allen said. "People talk a lot about peer pressure, but I just didn't give a hoot. Friends would ask me what I was listening to. When I'd tell them, they'd say, 'That's weird.'"

By the time Allen turned 15, he was going to hear Hamilton play wherever he was in the New England area. Soon a friendship developed between the two musicians, and later, a mutual professional admiration.

"Scott was extremely nice to me when I was kid," Allen said. "When I went to college in New Jersey, I would go to New York City where he was playing and he'd let me sit in with him. I sat in with him a lot in New York."

Those experiences helped Allen to pursue a career in music. After graduating high school in 1984, Allen enrolled in Rutgers University, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in music four years later.

The following year, Allen started his recording career in a session with pianist Kenny Barron, and he's never looked back.

When he signed on with BMG Japan ten years ago, the label provided Allen opportunities to record in a variety of different formats and to record with artists with whom he wanted to record, such as pianist Hank Jones and his trio, pianist Tommy Flanagan and his trio, and bassist Ray Brown, Allen said. He even did a record with strings.

Other recordings Allen has done include A Night In Birdland, Volume I, A Little Touch Of Harry, Allan And Allen (Allan Vache and Harry Allen), The Harry Allen And Joe Cohn Quartet, Christmas In Swingtime, Live At Renouf's, Are You Having Any Fun?, and Here's To Zoot.

Allen is featured on many of guitarist John Pizzarelli's recordings including the soundtrack and an on-screen cameo in the feature film, The Out of Towners, starring Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn. He has also done a series of commercials for ESPN starring Robert Goulet.

One of the highlights of Allen's career is recording and touring with his musical mentor, Hamilton. A few years ago, Hamilton was featured on Allen's All-Star Quartet album for BMG Japan, Just You, Just Me. Joining the two tenor men were Bucky Pizzarelli, guitar; John Bunch, piano; John Weber, bass; and Jake Hanna, drums.

The eight-track thunderous session instantly recalls the great tenor battles of yore that have been legendary in jazz's rich history. Lavish supplies of jump jazz, blues, bop and a ballad number are represented. Providing outstanding swinging support throughout the project are John Bunch, piano; Dennis Irwin, bass; and Chuck Riggs, drums.

The Harry Allen Quartet: (l-r) drummer Chuck Riggs, guitarist Joe Cohn, tenor saxophonist Harry Allen; and bassist Joel Forbes.

- Photo courtesy of Harry Allen

Earlier this year the two super sax men recorded their third album together, another BMG project, that's yet to be released. They also performed a concert together in New York this past June and have tours planned for Sweden in November, with Italy and Japan to follow, Allen said.

Another musician that Allen enjoys playing with is Howard Alden, the genius of the seven-string guitar. Since 2002, Allen has been part of an all-star aggregation led by Alden that has been a popular draw at the annual Sacramento Jazz Jubilee, billed as the largest jazz festival in the world. Known as "Howard Alden's East Coast All-Stars," remaining all-stars of the ensemble include Johnny Varro, piano; Randy Reinhardt, trumpet; Bill Allred, trombone; Dave Stone, bass; and Jake Hanna, drums. Alden's wife, Terri Richards Alden, provides the vocal support.

This stellar group recorded its first album together in March of this year called It's De-Lovely, put out by the Santa Fe Jazz Foundation. This organization helps musicians in need and financially supports college jazz programs and other jazz organizations throughout the U.S. The CD was recorded two months prior to the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee and was released in time for Jubilee patrons. (See Howard Alden's East Coast All-Stars CD)

"People wanted to buy CDs of the group and there weren't any to buy," Allen said. "So, we got together to record one."

At the time of this interview was conducted, Allen confessed that he hadn't heard the album as yet.

Harry Allen, third from left, playing as a member of Howard Alden's East Coast All-Stars at the 2005 Sacramento Jazz Jubilee. Other All-Stars

include Johnny Varro, piano; Alden, guitar; Dave Stone, bass; Randy Reinhart, trumpet; Jake Hanna, drums; and Bill Allred, trombone.

"The Sacramento Jazz Jubilee is one of the most different festivals," Allen said. "I can't think of any festival with as many bands as the Jazz Jubilee. Since it's the largest jazz festival, it must be a logistical nightmare for the people running it. I like different festivals for different reasons. I like Sacramento because the people are real sweet and it's fun to play at one place and then rush to play at another venue." (See www.sacjazz.com )

What makes Allen a favorite at jazz festivals and clubs are his fertile imagination when it comes to improvising and his beautiful tone that seems to echo combinations of Ben Webster, Stan Getz, Zoot Sims and Al Cohn all rolled into one. What listeners hear is a synthesis of the "hard" and "cool" that come out of the bell of his sax.

"I think my two major influences now would be Ben Webster and Stan Getz," Allen said. "I have a lot of other influences as well. There's Zoot, Al (Cohn), Illinois Jacquet, Lester Young and Flip Phillips. Flip was another tenor play that was underrated."

Because Allen makes things sound so easy, so effortless, some would go so far as to say that what comes out of Allen's horn is 90 percent inspiration and 10 percent perspiration.

"I would have to say it's mostly inspiration" Allen said. "I put in a lot of perspiration though hours of practice. I had a college professor once say, 'Well, Allen's playing too much and not practicing enough.' I don't agree with that line of thinking at all. I'm always challenging myself when I play. I'm never trying to play it safe, never. I'm always trying to play things that I haven't played before, both musically and technically. Maybe there are some things I can't do, but I try them anyway. I ever feel that I have nothing to say. I never resort to just playing licks. I always try to find something new to play. When I play every night, I don't feel the need to practice because I'm pushing myself while I'm playing. It's years of perspiration and each night it's more inspiration."

Allen's quartet is constantly making treks around the world headlining at various jazz festivals and clubs. In May, they played at a jazz festival in Australia. On June 24 Allen joined John Pizzarelli for a concert at Carnegie Hall. Days later, Allen and his ensemble were at The Blue Note jazz club in Milan, while during the first half of July they played at the Ascona Jazz Festival in Ascona, Switzerland, and at the Umbria Jazz Festival in Perugia, Italy. The first week of August Allen and crew will be at The Blue Note in Nagoya, Japan. Over Labor Day weekend, Allen will be a guest at the annual West Coast Jazz Party in Irvine, CA. (See www.westcoastjazzparty.com )

While Allen is popular overseas, he doesn't find the foreign crowd more receptive to his music than Americans, he said.

"I do a lot of travel around the states and I've played to wonderful crowds," Allen said. "They were wonderfully receptive."

"I get very, very sweet comments which makes everything all worthwhile," Allen said.

But not all the comments received are sweet. Some have expressed concerns that Allen's "look" may not be always be that cordial, he said.

"I sort of have a look that conveys I would bite someone's head off if they came up to talk to me," Allen confessed. "People have told me I have a very serious look on my face. I don't feel that I do, but I've been told that."

Just as he looked to Scott Hamilton as a musical idol when he was a youngster, Allen is now sought out by younger sax players for direction, he said.

"I get a fair amount of e-mails from sax players around the world saying that they like the way I play, which always makes me feel great," Allen said.

In addition to his extensive touring schedule, Allen plans to be back in the recording studios working on new recording projects including another quartet recording, a CD with pianist Monty Alexander, and recording with Francesco Caprico, a 16-year-old alto saxophonist from Italy, who is "incredible" and "phenomenal," Allen said.

Also on the plate for consideration is the possibility of Allen, Hamilton and Eric Alexander getting together to do a "Three Tenors" album.

"I would love to record with Eric Alexander," Allen said. "I've done a bunch of tours with Eric and I love his playing. He's certainly one of the best guys out there."

Allen is also a compelling composer, having written such tunes as I Can See Forever, Slow Motion and Chuck's Lament. A future album featuring his compositional works is also "a possibility," Allen said.

"I do enjoy composing," Allen said. "I enjoy playing compositions of mine that are the best ones. I might do that at some point."

But for the moment, Allen wants to focus most of his time and energies formulating a base of material for his quartet, he said.

"Joe Cohn has the fastest ears of anyone I've ever seen," Allen said. "Like I said, I think music should be inventive. We have some arrangements, but most of the time our arrangements consist of me coming up with an arrangement on the spot, with Joe following me. I can play something as complicated as I want and he'll be right there following me as if we had written down. I have perfect pitch, which helps with that. When the notes come out, I hear what they are. Joe doesn't have perfect pitch but he has every bit as good an ear. It's really quite amazing. I'll play some sort of shout chorus and he'll play it right with me in harmony."

In whatever form Allen's music is made, whether it be with his own quartet or as a member of an all-star aggregation or with strings or even solo, it's a sure bet that it will epitomize excellence and tastefulness and guaranteed to always swing. While his contributions to the continuum of jazz and to the saxophone have been award-winning, Allen is reluctant to speculate on that subject any further.

"That's not for me to say," Allen modestly said. "I don't really think that way. I just play the saxophone the way I want to play it. Hopefully, people will enjoy it and would want to hear it. It reminds me of story when Artie Shaw was interviewed. He was asked when he knew his clarinet solo on Stardust was going to be a classic. He said, 'About half way through it.' (laughs) I certainly don't think like that."

Jazz Connection Magazine . August - September 2005 . www.jazzconnectionmag.com