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Mark Shane's X-Mas Allstars: What Would Santa Say?
by Ed Kopp
There's a dearth of new Christmas jazz releases this season, but here's one to stuff in your stocking. What Would Santa Say? is a very enjoyable collection of familiar holiday tunes done up in a swinging trad-jazz style.Mark Shane is a New York City pianist well known for his stride work. On these 14 holiday tunes he also demonstrates a thorough familiarity with Teddy Wilson's accessible approach to swing piano and a Louis Prima-like vocal style. Shane is ...
Continue ReadingHarry Allen: Eu Nao Quero Dancar (I Won't Dance)
by C. Andrew Hovan
There's a true universal appeal to Brazilian music. Somehow the exuberant lilting quality it possesses has an uplifting effect on music lovers everywhere. Maybe that's why there was an avalanche of bossa nova projects to appear in the '60s. Not to mention that Jobim has continued to sell records and have his classics performed by countless number of performers. Now, add to that list tenor saxophonist Harry Allen. One of many musicians to benefit from the rediscovery of “swing", Allen ...
Continue ReadingHarry Allen and Randy Sandke Meet the RIAS Big Band: Music of the Trumpet Kings
by Jack Bowers
If you’re feeling blue and need some music to put a smile on your face and a spring in your step, Trumpet Kings could be precisely what the doctor ordered. Happiness is the keynote from which this auspicious encounter between tenor Harry Allen, trumpeter Randy Sandke and Germany’s superb RIAS Big Band derives its creative impulse. Beyond that are the luminous charts (all but one of which, Buck Clayton’s modish, Lunceford–style “Rolls Royce,” are by Sandke) with their contemporary inflections ...
Continue ReadingHarry Allen Quintet: A Night at Birdland, Vol. 1
by Jack Bowers
Another in a series of recent triumphs by young (27–year–old) Harry Allen whose smooth, deep–throated and swing–based tenor saxophone benefits enormously from the presence on this concert date at Hamburg, Germany’s Birdland of chameleonlike trumpeter Randy Sandke and a topnotch rhythm section — one of whose members, the superb mainstream drummer Oliver Jackson, passed away only months after this, his final recording (how fitting that his solo voice should be the last one heard, on the quintet’s blazing rendition of ...
Continue ReadingHarry Allen Quartet: Jazz im Amerika Haus, Vol. 1
by Jack Bowers
Young Harry Allen, a rising star among swing–based tenor saxophonists, is heard here in the company of a world–class rhythm section that helps him breeze confidently through a nearly eighty–minute–long concert consisting for the most part of well–known songs from the Golden Age of American popular music. Although Allen is no one’s clone, I am struck by how often his wailing sound and informed manner of expression remind me of the late Stan Getz, of all people. This is especially ...
Continue ReadingTenor Saxophonist, Harry Allen
by Gene Lees
Stan Getz was once asked his idea of the perfect tenor saxophone soloist. His answer (pianist Lou Levy was present and heard it) was, “My technique, Al Cohn's ideas, and Zoot's time." The fulfillment of that ideal may well be embodied in thirty-year-old Harry Allen, who is so good that after several takes of a tune on a record date, arranger and composer Johnny Mandel said from the control booth, Harry, would you mind screwing up on some ...
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