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Phil Allen

Valvetrombonist/arranger/composer

About Me

Born and raised in Indianapolis, IN where I studied trumpet and arranging with Jim Edison, piano with Steve Allee, composition and arranging with Alan Foust and improvisation with Alan Kiger. In the late 70's early 80's played with and wrote for the John Von Ohlen/Steve Allee Big Band. Through out the 80's and early 90's freelanced and led various groups. In spring of 1996 I moved to the San Francisco Bay area. While there I played in and wrote for the CSM Monday night band and was part of the Collective West Jazz Orchestra led by Fil Lorenz. In 2002 wrote and produced Downbeat 9:30 the first recording of the Collective West. I played with and wrote for that band until 2008 when I moved to Colorado Springs,CO. In the fall of 2009 I started Thin Air Jazz. We did our first concert in Feb. 2010 and have been playing ever since. Recently several of the arrangements that I've done for Thin Air have been published by Walrus Publishing. One of the true highlights was having Bobby Shew as a guest with the band in 2011 and again in 2012 and being able to write arrangements on some of his tunes.

My Jazz Story

At a very young age my father got a copy of The Atomic Basie, the one with all of the Neal Hefti charts. I was hooked. In my early teens I heard Maynard '64. I proceeded to get my hands on every Maynard side I could. Not long afterwards, my older brother shared The Gerry Mulligan Quartet with me and I heard Bob Brookmeyer for the first time. I've played valve trombone ever since.