1961 in jazz:

Events[link]

• Bengali Indian sitar player and composer Ravi Shankar and western jazz musicians Gary Peacock and Bud Shank collaborate on the album Improvisations. The album combines the use of sitar and jazz music and is considered an early example of fusion experiments with jazz and Indian classical music. In early 1961 John Coltrane begins listening to North Indian music and the music of Shankar becomes influential in his development as a musician.
• John Coltrane sells an estimated 30,000 copies of My Favorite Things in its first year of release
• June 25 - Bill Evans Trio records Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby during a two-week stay at The Village Vanguard in New York. The recording was made from five sets they played on June 25 and was the last time the trio would play before virtuoso bassist Scott LaFaro's death 10 days later.
• November 1 - John Coltrane begins recording his first live record Live! at the Village Vanguard.

Album releases[link]

• Basie at Birdland - Count Basie Orchestra (Roulette)
• A Jazz Hour with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers: Blues March - Art Blakey (Movieplay)
• Mosaic - Art Blakey (Blue Note)
• Pisces - Art Blakey (Blue Note)
• Time Further Out - The Dave Brubeck Quartet (Columbia)
• Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation - Ornette Coleman (Atlantic)
• Coltrane Jazz - John Coltrane (Atlantic)
• My Favorite Things - John Coltrane (Atlantic)
• Live in Stockholm 1961 - John Coltrane (LeJazz)
• American Freedom - Duke Ellington & Louis Armstrong (Blue Note)
• Out of the Cool - Gil Evans Orchestra (Impulse!)
• Focus - Stan Getz (Verve)
• 1961 - Jimmy Giuffre 3 (ECM)
• All The Sad Young Men - Anita O'Day (Verve)
• The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra - Sun Ra and his Arkestra (Savoy Records)
• We are in the Future - Sun Ra and his Arkestra (Savoy Records)
• We Travel the Spaceways - Sun Ra and his Myth Science Arkestra
• Secrets of the Sun - by Sun Ra and his Solar Arkestra (El Saturn Records)
• Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy - Sun Ra and his Myth Science Arkestra
• Bad and Beautiful - Sun Ra and his Myth Science Arkestra (El Saturn Records, Impulse!)
• Fate in a Pleasant Mood - Sun Ra and his Myth Science Arkestra (El Saturn Records, Impulse!)
• Percussion Bitter Sweet - Max Roach (Impulse!)
• Forbidden Fruit - Nina Simone (Colpix)

Standards[link]

Deaths[link]

• Scott LaFaro, bassist
• Nick LaRocca, New Orleans cornetist, trumpeter
• Wilber Sweatman, clarinetist
• Booker Little(2 April 1938 – 5 October 1961)

Births[link]

• Franck Amsallem, pianist
• Cris Barber, vocalist
• Ivan Božičević, pianist
• Rachelle Ferrell, vocalist
• Paul Hanmer, pianist
• Everette Harp, saxophonist
• David Kikoski, pianist
• Mornington Lockett, tenor saxophonist
• Arturo O'Farrill, pianist

Awards[link]

• Grammy Awards of 1961
  • Best Jazz Performance Solo or Small Group
    • André Previn for West Side Story
  • Best Jazz Performance Large Group
    • Henry Mancini for Blues and the Beat
  • Best Jazz Composition of More Than Five Minutes Duration
    • Gil Evans & Miles Davis for Sketches of Spain

Music criticism[link]

• Dan Morgenstern, Jazz Journal (1958–1961), Metronome (1961)

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Ratliff, Ben (2007). Coltrane: The Story of a Sound. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 0-374-12606-2. 
• The New Real Book, Volume I. Sher Music. 1988. ISBN 0-9614701-4-3. 
• The New Real Book, Volume II. Sher Music. 1991. ISBN 0-9614701-7-8. 
• The New Real Book, Volume III. Sher Music. 1995. ISBN 1-883217-30-X. 
• The Real Book, Volume I (6th ed.). Hal Leonard. 2004. ISBN 0-634-06038-4. 
• The Real Book, Volume II (2nd ed.). Hal Leonard. 2007. ISBN 1-4234-2452-2. 
• The Real Book, Volume III (2nd ed.). Hal Leonard. 2006. ISBN 0-634-06136-4. 
• The Real Jazz Book. Warner Bros. ISBN 978-91-85041-36-7. 
• The Real Vocal Book, Volume I. Hal Leonard. 2006. ISBN 0-634-06080-5. 

George Gruhn is a writer and businessman. He is an expert on vintage American guitars and related instruments.^[1] He opened Gruhn Guitars in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1970 and has sold guitars to musicians such as Eric Clapton, Lyle Lovett, Emmylou Harris, Billy Gibbons, Rick Nielsen, John Hiatt, and Hank Williams, Jr.^[1] Vintage Guitar magazine described his store as a "landmark," and a mecca "for fans of collectible electric and acoustic guitars."^[2] He is also the author of several books on the subject.^[3]

See also[link]

• Vintage Guitar

References[link]

External links[link]

• Gruhn Guitars

Art Blakey
Blakey
Background information
Birth name	Arthur Blakey
Also known as	Abdullah Ibn Buhaina
Born	(1919-10-11)October 11, 1919 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania United States
Died	October 16, 1990(1990-10-16) (aged 71) New York City, New York, U.S.
Genres	Hard bop, bebop
Occupations	Drummer, bandleader
Instruments	Drums, percussion
Years active	1942–1990
Labels	Blue Note
Associated acts	Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers, Art Blakey Quartet, Art Blakey Quintet, Art Blakey & the Afrocuban Boys
Website	www.artblakey.com

Arthur "Art" Blakey (October 11, 1919 – October 16, 1990),^[1] known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.

Along with Kenny Clarke and Max Roach, he was one of the inventors of the modern bebop style of drumming. He is known as a powerful musician and a vital groover; his brand of bluesy, funky hard bop was and continues to be profoundly influential on mainstream jazz. For more than 30 years his band, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, included many young musicians who went on to become prominent names in jazz. The band's legacy is thus not only known for the music it produced, but as a proving ground for several generations of jazz musicians;^[2] Blakey's groups are matched only by those of Miles Davis in this regard.^[3]

Blakey was inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame (in 1982), the Grammy Hall of Fame (in 2001), and was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.

Before the Messengers[link]

Blakey was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. By the time he was a teenager, he was playing the piano full-time, leading a commercial band. Shortly afterwards, reputedly because he thought he would be unable to compete with the emerging pianist Erroll Garner, he taught himself to play the drums in the aggressive swing style of Chick Webb, Sid Catlett and Ray Bauduc. He joined Mary Lou Williams as a drummer for an engagement in New York in autumn 1942. He then toured with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra (1939–1942). During his years with Billy Eckstine’s big band (1944–7), Blakey became associated with the bebop movement, along with his fellow band members Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Fats Navarro and others.^[4]

By the late forties and early fifties, Blakey was backing musicians such as Miles Davis, Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk — he is often considered to have been Monk's most empathetic drummer,^[5] and he played on both Monk's first recording session as a leader (for Blue Note Records in 1947) and his final one (in London in 1971), as well as many in between.

Blakey said that he travelled to Africa during 1948 and 1949. He converted to Islam during this period and took the name Abdullah Ibn Buhaina (which led to the nickname "Bu"). In the early 1950s he performed and broadcast with such musicians as Charlie Parker and Miles Davis.

From his earliest recording sessions with Eckstine, and particularly in his historic sessions with Monk in 1947, Blakey exuded power and originality, creating a dark cymbal sound punctuated by frequent loud snare- and bass-drum accents in triplets or cross-rhythms. Although Blakey discouraged comparison of his own music with African drumming, he adopted several African devices, including rapping on the side of the drum and using his elbow on the tom-tom to alter the pitch. His much-imitated trademark, the forceful closing of the hi-hat on every second and fourth beat, was part of his style from 1950 to '51. A loud and domineering drummer, Blakey also listened and responded to his soloists. His contribution to jazz as a discoverer and molder of young talent over three decades was no less significant than his very considerable innovations on his instrument.^[4]

The Jazz Messengers[link]

Art Blakey on a tour billed as part of the "Giants of Jazz" in Hamburg, Germany in 1973

In 1947 Blakey organized the Seventeen Messengers, a rehearsal band, and recorded with an octet called the Jazz Messengers.^[6] The use of the Messengers tag only stuck with the group co-led at first by both Blakey and pianist Horace Silver, though the name was not used on the earliest of their recordings. Blakey and Silver recorded together on several occasions, including live at Birdland with trumpeter Clifford Brown and alto-saxophonist Lou Donaldson in 1954 for Blue Note, having formed in 1953 a regular cooperative group with Hank Mobley and Kenny Dorham.

The "Jazz Messengers" name was first used for this group on a 1954 recording nominally led by Silver, with Blakey, Mobley, Dorham and Doug Watkins — the same quintet would record The Jazz Messengers at the Cafe Bohemia the following year, still functioning as a collective. Donald Byrd replaced Dorham, and the group recorded an album called simply The Jazz Messengers for Columbia Records in 1956. Blakey took over the group name when Silver left after the band's first year (taking Mobley, Byrd and Watkins with him to form a new quintet with a variety of drummers), and the band was known as "Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers" from then onwards with Blakey being the sole leader, and he remained associated with it for the rest of his life. It was the archetypal hard-bop group of the 1950s, playing a driving, aggressive extension of bop with pronounced blues roots. Towards the end of the 1950s, the saxophonists Johnny Griffin and Benny Golson were in turn briefly members of the group. Golson, as music director, wrote several jazz standards which began as part of the band book such as "I Remember Clifford", and "Blues March" was regularly revived by later editions of the group. "Along Came Betty" and "Are You Real" were other Golson compositions for Blakey.

From 1959 to 1961 the group featured Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone, Jymie Merritt, Lee Morgan, and Bobby Timmons.^[1] The second line-up (1961–1964) was a sextet that added trombonist Curtis Fuller and replaced Morgan and Timmons with Freddie Hubbard and Cedar Walton, respectively.^[1] Shorter was now the musical director of the group, and many of his original compositions such as "Lester Left Town" remained repertoire staples later on. (Other players over the years made permanent marks on Blakey's repertoire — Timmons, composer of "Dat Dere" and "Moanin'", and later, Bobby Watson.) Shorter's more experimental inclinations pushed the band at the time into an engagement with the 1960s "New Thing", as it was called: the influence of Coltrane's contemporary records on Impulse! is evident on Free For All (1964), often cited as the greatest document of the Shorter-era Messengers (and certainly one of the most fearsomely powerful examples of hard bop on record).^{[citation needed]}

Up to the 1960s Blakey also recorded as a sideman with many other musicians: Jimmy Smith, Herbie Nichols, Cannonball Adderley, Grant Green, and Jazz Messengers graduates Lee Morgan and Hank Mobley, amongst many others. However, after the mid-1960s he mostly concentrated on his own work as a leader. Blakey also made a world tour in 1971–2 with the Giants of Jazz (with Dizzy Gillespie, Kai Winding, Sonny Stitt, Thelonious Monk and Al McKibbon).^[4]

Later career[link]

Blakey went on to record dozens of albums with a constantly changing group of Jazz Messengers — he had a policy of encouraging young musicians: as he remarked on-mike during the live session which resulted in the A Night at Birdland albums in 1954: "I'm gonna stay with the youngsters. When these get too old I'll get some younger ones. Keeps the mind active."^[1] After weathering the fusion era in the 1970s with some difficulty (recordings from this period are less plentiful and include attempts to incorporate instruments like electric piano), Blakey's band got revitalized in the early 1980s with the advent of neotraditionalist jazz. Blakey's ferociousness and tenacity while drumming earned him the nickname "Jazz Tiger", or "The Tiger of Jazz". Wynton Marsalis was for a time the band's trumpeter and musical director, and even after Marsalis's departure Blakey's band continued as a proving ground for many "Young Lions" like Johnny O'Neal, Philip Harper, Terence Blanchard, Donald Harrison and Kenny Garrett.

Blakey continued performing and touring with the group into the late 1980s; Ron Wynn notes that Blakey had "played with such force and fury that he eventually lost much of his hearing, and at the end of his life, often played strictly by instinct."^[7] Some reports suggest Blakey had hearing problems as early as 1959. Blakey died in 1990 in New York City, leaving behind a vast legacy and approach to jazz which is still the model for countless hard-bop players.^[1][7]

Jazz Messengers alumni[link]

This section requires expansion.

Piano

Wynton Kelly, Joanne Brackeen, Donald Brown, Walter Davis, Jr., Sam Dockery, Kenny Drew, Benny Green, John Hicks, Keith Jarrett, Geoffrey Keezer, Mulgrew Miller, Johnny O'Neal, Horace Silver, Bobby Timmons, Cedar Walton, James Williams

Reeds

Dale Barlow, Gary Bartz, Kenny Garrett, Lou Donaldson, John Gilmore, Benny Golson, Johnny Griffin, Billy Harper, Donald Harrison, Javon Jackson, Branford Marsalis, Jackie McLean, Hank Mobley, Bill Pierce, David Schnitter, Wayne Shorter, Ira Sullivan, Jean Toussaint, Bobby Watson

Trumpet

Terence Blanchard, Clifford Brown, Donald Byrd, Kenny Dorham, Bill Hardman, Philip Harper, Freddie Hubbard, Brian Lynch, Chuck Mangione, Wynton Marsalis, Lee Morgan, Woody Shaw, Valery Ponomarev, Charles Tolliver

Trombone

Steve Davis, Robin Eubanks, Curtis Fuller, Frank Lacy, Tim Williams

Bass

Spanky DeBrest, Charles Fambrough, Dennis Irwin, Jymie Merritt, Curly Russell, Victor Sproles, Doug Watkins, Wilbur Ware, Reggie Workman, Riccardo Del Fra, Stanley Clarke

Guitar

Bobby Broom, Kevin Eubanks

Drums

Ralph Peterson, Jr.

Awards[link]

• Jazz Mobile Development and Preservation of Jazz (1970)
• Newport Jazz Festival Hall of Fame (1976)
• Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame Reader's Choice Award (1981)
• Smithsonian Performing Arts Certificate of Appreciation (1982)
• Lee Morgan Memorial Award (1982)
• Jazz Hall of Fame Induction (1982)
• Grammy Award Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Group (1984) for the album New York Scene
• Jazznote Award (1986)
• Doctorate of Music (1987; Berklee College of Music)
• Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award (1991)
• Grammy Hall of Fame Induction for the album Moanin' (2001)
• Pittsburgh Jazz Festival Award
• Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (2005; awarded posthumously)

Discography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Art Blakey

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Art Blakey

• Official Art Blakey website

Dick Farney

Dick Farney (birthname Farnésio Dutra e Silva: born November 14, 1921; died August 4, 1987) was a Brazilian pianist, pop-composer, and "crooner" popular in the 1950s.

Dick Farney, stage name of Farnesio Dutra e Silva (Rio de Janeiro, November 14, 1921 - August 4, 1987) was a Brazilian pianist, pop-composer, and "crooner" very popular in Brazil in the late 1940s until 1970s. He began playing piano as a child when he learned classical music with his father while his mother taught him singing. In 1937 he debuted as a singer in "Hora Juvenil radio program at Radio Cruzeiro do Sul in Rio de Janeiro, when he performed the song Deep Purple composed by David Rose, was taken by César Ladeira to Radio Mayrink Veiga, going to present the program "Dick Farney, the Voice and Piano". He formed the group "Os Swing Maniacos", alongside with his brother Cyll Farney, on drums, and accompanied Edu da Gaita Song on recording of "Indian Song" by the Russian composer Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908). From 1941 to 1944, was the crooner with the orchestra of Carlos Machado, at the Casino da Urca, at the time when gamblinge was still allowed in Brazil. In 1946 he was invited to go to the United States after meeting arranger Bill Hitchcock and pianist Eddie Duchin at the Copacabana Palace Hotel. Between 1947 and 1948 appeared on many radio programs on NBC, especially as regular singer at the "Milton Berle Show". In 1948 he appeared with success in the nightclub Vogue, in Rio de Janeiro. In 1959 he had his own TV program "Dick Farney Show", aired by TV Record - Channel 7 in Sao Paulo. In 1960 formed the group "Dick Farney and His Orchestra" and played in many balls. In 1965 he had the "Dick and Betty Show" at the newly opened TV Globo - Channel 4, Rio de Janeiro, presented by himself and Betty Faria. He was owner of the nightclubs "Farney's" and "Farney's Inn", both in São Paulo. Formed a trio with Sabá oin 1971. From 1973 to 1978 he played piano and sang at the nightclub "Chez Régine" in Rio

Discography[link]

• 1944 - The music stopped(fox)/Mairzy doats(fox-trot) - with the Ferreira Filho Orchestra- gravadora Continental
• 1944 - What's new ? (fox-trot) - crooner do conjunto Milionários.
• 1944 - San Fernando Valley/I love you
• 1944 - I don't want to walk without you
• 1945 - This love of mine/The man I love
• 1946 - Copacabana/Barqueiro do rio São Francisco - with Eduardo Patané
• 1946 - Era ela/Ela foi embora
• 1947 - Worth Duckin' (parody of the Duckworth Chant, on A side of V-Disc 799, with Leroy "Slam" Stewart on bass and scat-singing)
• 1947 - Just an Old Love of Mine (Peggy Lee/Dave Barbour) /For Once in My Life (Fisher/Segal) with Paul Baron and his Orchestra
• 1947 - Marina/Foi e não voltou
• 1947 - Gail in Galico/For sentimental reasons
• 1948 - Ser ou não ser/Um cantinho e você
• 1948 - Meu Rio de Janeiro/A saudade mata a gente
• 1948 - Esquece/Somos dois…
• 1949 - Ponto final/Olhos tentadores
• 1949 - Junto de mim/Sempre teu
• 1950 - Não tem solução/Lembrança do passado - gravadora Sinter
• 1951 - Uma loira/Meu erro
• 1951 - Canção do vaqueiro/Nick Bar
• 1952 - Mundo distante/Não sei a razão
• 1952 - Luar sobre a Guanabara/Fim de romance
• 1952 - Sem esse céu/Alguém como tu
• 1953 - Perdido de amor/Meu sonho
• 1953 - Nova ilusão/João Sebastião Bach
• 1953 - April in Paris/All the things you are
• 1953 - Speak low/You keepcoming back like a song
• 1954 - Copacabana/My melancholy baby
• 1954 - Tenderly/How soon - Majestic Records
• 1954 - Somebody loves me/There's no sweeter word than sweetheart
• 1954 - Marina/For once in your life
• 1954 - Grande verdade/Você se lembra?
• 1954 - Outra vez/Canção do mar
• 1954 - Tereza da praia/Casinha pequenina - with Lúcio Alves
• 1954 - Música romântica com Dick Farney-
• 1954 - Sinfonia do Rio de Janeiro
• 1955 - A saudade mata a gente
• 1955 - Foi você/Tudo isto é amor
• 1955 - Dick Farney e seu Quinteto
• 1955 - Bem querer/Sem amor nada se tem
• 1955 - Dick Farney on Broadway
• 1956 - Jingle bells/White Christmas/Feliz Natal
• 1956 - Jazz Festival
• 1956 - Jazz after midnight
• 1956 - Meia-noite em Copacabana com Dick Farney
• 1956 - Dick Farney Trio
• 1957 - Un argentino en Brasil/Nem fala meu nome
• 1957 - O ranchinho e você/Só eu sei
• 1957 - Toada de amor/O luar e eu…
• 1959 - Este seu olhar/Se é por falta de adeus
• 1959 - Esquecendo você/Amor sem adeus
• 1959 - Atendendo a pedidos
• 1960 - Dick Farney em canções para a noite de meu bem
• 1960 - Dick Farney e seu jazz moderno no auditório de O Globo
• 1960 - Dick Farney no Waldorf
• 1961 - Somos dois/Uma loura
• 1961 - Dick Farney Jazz
• 1961 - Dick Farney Show
• 1961 - Jam Session
• 1962 - Dick Farney apresenta sua orquestra no auditório deO Globo - featuring Leny Andrade
• 1965 - Meia-noite em Copacabana
• 1967 - Dick Farney, piano e Orquestra Gaya
• 1972 - Penumbra e romance
• 1973 - Dick Farney
• 1973 - Concerto de Jazz ao vivo
• 1974 - Dick Farney e você
• 1974 - Um piano ao cair da tarde
• 1975 - Um piano ao cair da tarde II
• 1976 - Dick Farney
• 1976 - Tudo isso é amor - with Claudette Soares
• 1977 - Cinco anos de jazz
• 1978 - Dick Farney
• 1978 - Tudo isso é amor II
• 1979 - Dick Farney: o cantor, o pianista, o diretor de orquestra - série Retrospecto - gravadora RGE
• 1981 - Noite
• 1983 - Feliz de amor
• 1985 - Momentos
• 1986 - Dick Farney "ao vivo" (Arte do espetáculo)

Red Allen
Henry "Red" Allen at Onyx, New York, N.Y., ca. May 1946 Photo: William P. Gottlieb
Background information
Birth name	Henry James Allen
Also known as	"Red"
Born	January 7, 1906 Algiers, Louisiana, United States
Died	April 17, 1967 New York City, New York, United States
Genres	Jazz
Occupations	Trumpeter
Instruments	Trumpet
Years active	1924–1967
Associated acts	King Oliver, Clarence Williams, Steve Lacy

Henry James "Red" Allen (January 7, 1906 – April 17, 1967) was a jazz trumpeter and vocalist whose style has been claimed to be the first to fully incorporate the innovations of Louis Armstrong.

Life and career[link]

Henry James "Red" Allen was born in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of bandleader Henry Allen. He took early trumpet lessons from Peter Bocage and Manuel Manetta.

Allen's career began in Sidney Desvigne's Southern Syncopators. He was playing professionally by 1924 with the Excelsior Brass Band and the jazz dance bands of Sam Morgan, George Lewis and John Casimir. After playing on riverboats on the Mississippi River he went to Chicago in 1927 to join King Oliver's band. Around this time he made recordings on the side in the band of Clarence Williams. After returning briefly to New Orleans, where he worked with the bands of Fate Marable and Fats Pichon, he was offered a recording contract with Victor Records and returned to New York City, where he also joined the Luis Russell band, which was later fronted by Louis Armstrong in the late 1930s.^[1]

In 1929 Allen joined Luis Russell's Orchestra where he was a featured soloist until 1932. Allen took part in recording sessions that year organized by Eddie Condon, some of which featured Fats Waller and/or Tommy Dorsey. He also made a series of recordings in late 1931 with Don Redman, and in 1933 he joined Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra where he stayed until 1934. He played with Lucky Millinder's Mills Blue Rhythm Band from 1934 to 1937, when he returned to Luis Russell for three more years by the time Russell's orchestra was fronted by Louis Armstrong. Allen very seldom received any solo space on recordings with Armstrong, but was prominently featured at the band's personal appearances, even getting billing as a featured attraction.

As a bandleader, Allen recorded for Victor from 1929 through 1930. He made a series of recordings as co-leader with Coleman Hawkins in 1933 for ARC (Banner, Melotone, Oriole, Perfect, Romeo, etc.) and continued on as an ARC recording artist through 1935, when he was moved over to ARC's Vocalion label for a popular series of swing records from 1935 through late 1937. A number of these were quite popular at the time. He did a solitary session for Decca in 1940 and two sessions for OKeh in 1941. After World War II, he recorded for Brunswick in 1944, Victor in 1946, and Apollo in 1947.

Allen continued making many recordings under his own name, as well as recording with Fats Waller and Jelly Roll Morton, and accompanying such vocalists as Victoria Spivey and Billie Holiday. After a short stint with Benny Goodman, Allen started leading his own band at The Famous Door in Manhattan. He then toured with the band around the USA into the late 1950s.

In December 1957, Red Allen made an appearance on the "Sound Of Jazz" television show. In 1959 Allen made his first tour of Europe when he joined Kid Ory's band. From 1954 until the club ceased its jazz policy in 1965, Allen led the house band at New York's Metropole Cafe.

Death[link]

Allen returned to working under his own name making numerous tours of the United States and Europe. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in late 1966, and after undergoing surgery, made a final tour of England ending six weeks before his death on April 17, 1967 in New York City. He left behind his widow, Pearly May, and a son, Henry Allen III.

Style and influence[link]

Red Allen's trumpet style has been described, by some critics, as the first to fully incorporate the innovations of Louis Armstrong and to develop an emphasis on phrasing.^[2] Allen's recordings received much favorable attention. His versatility is shown by his winning of Down Beat awards in both the traditional jazz and the modern jazz categories.

Discography[link]

• World on a String (originally "Ride, Red, Ride in Hi-Fi")
• The College Concert with Pee Wee Russell (Impulse!, 1966)
• Jazz Standards and Warhorses, with Coleman Hawkins, (Jass Records, CD version 1987)
• 1929-1933 (Chronological Classics 540, 1990)

References[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Henry "Red" Allen

• Red Hot Jazz site website

Further reading[link]

• Ride, Red, Ride - The Life of Henry "Red" Allen by John Chilton, Continuum, 1999. ISBN 0-304-70407-5