Red Allen Chapters 9 - The Jazz Archive

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Dover Lake Land News, Thu. 9/27/62p22 Music Makers - News And Views About Music And The People Who Make It
by Harold Plartey (Swingsville 2034)
"Mr. Allen" - Henry "Red" Allen is
one of the real giants of jazz. Nobody
plays a trumpet just like Red Allen and
his new "Swingsville" album proves it.
The New Orleans trumpet ace plays
with a natural swing and rhythmic
ease. and his control and dynamics
point up his individual style.
The album should have been called
"The Amazing Mr. Allen," for Red
plays a program of ballads and blues,
he swings, he sings and he entertains
all the way through. His low register
playing is beau-tiful to hear, and there's
plenty of it.
The group has been playing such plush
establishments as The Embers in NYC
and The Palmer House in Chicago.
The rhythm section plays with a loose,
swinging beat with Lannie Scott, piano:
Jerry Potter, bass, and Frank Skeete,
drums, and it's the best rhythm section I
have ever heard Red play with.
Take your pick as to which is the best
of the eight slices in the album. Mr.
Allen sings a couple (in his own inimitable
style) with "I Ain't Got Nobody"
and "Cherry" as pace breakers on
opposite sides. There's the ever popular
"St. Louis Blues" and "Biffly Blues" in
the blues department and "Nice Work If
You Can Get It" and "Just In Time" in
the popuöar category.
You pay your money and you take
your pick, but you'll find that Red Allen
was never better than he is in this album.
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John Postgate about XTRA 5032, in Jazz Monthly lo/67-, The more I hear of TRUMPET MAN – Henry”Red
the late Henry Allen's recordings, the more convinced I become that he was
one of the few really great jazz musicians. His style was set in broad outline
as long ago as 1930, but it did not remain static and indeed, improved
gradually throughout his life. Both he and Roy Eldridge regarded any
suggestion of mutual influence as risible, but they do have certain resemblances.
On this issue, for example, the analogy between the two musicians is quite
striking on THERE'S A HOUSE IN HARLEM: here Allen uses a strained
tone very typical of Eldridge might have slipped into a "buzz" tone, Allen
makes use of an open rasp. But the resemblance between the two is fairly
superficial, arising from their common debt to Armstrong, and the fact that
both are what one might call "coarse" trumpeters. Allen's style was in fact
highly original, and its most pronounced characteristic was its wide ranging
quality: to enjoy Allen one must accept that the music will move from
delicacy to stridency in a matter of bare; it will not, generally speaking, build
to a climax, but will rather occupy the ears continuously by setting up musical
patterns and dislocating them. This manner of playing can be ineffably tedious
in the hand of untalented: The post-Parker practice of saxophonists of keeping
on blowing in the hope that something interesting might happen underlies
much of my lack of sympathy for hard bop and its off-shoots.
Allen's approach is perfectly illustrated in the to me-absolutely brilliant
performance of JUST IN TIME on this issue: the theme is stated, idiosyncratically,
over the first sixteen bars, then a protracted phrase of remarkable
melodic delicacy takes care of the repetition. Two choruses of fertile,
somewhat understated variations and contrasts follow, switching from
light suggestion to coarse growl as bar follows bar; no climax is reached
so, characteristically, a show-biz type is used to bring the performance to
an end. A capsule of the essential Allen: a sophisticated primitive, who
developed an untutored style into something that had a rare consistency
and logic, even at a cerebral level.
The jagged quality of his music-jagged both in mood and in melodic struc- TRUMPET MAN – Henry”Red Allen, the
ture-often caused Allen's playing to conflict with established canons of jazz New Orleans-born trumpet man whose horn
taste, which is why, I think, so many jazz fans have tended to dismiss him. has made him one of the most popular jazz
Yet once one gets into rapport with him, even his beloved tear-up of musicians around, is going home to visit
CHERRY takes on a wayward kind of beauty. This record has many delights his 78-year old mother, Mrs.Juretta Allen,
from his Douanier Rousseau of the jazz trumpet - SLEEPY TIME GIRL and who still lives in the little Newton Street
BIFFLY blues (a 32-bar blues in a minor key) are particularly notable house where “Red” was born in January,
performances - but I think he was not retirely relaxed at the session. The 1908. CD:6/30/62p16 (in larger size the same
proceedings lack, some of the ebullience of the rather similar "FEELING photo was used by Jan Evensmo in his book).
GOOD",.(CBS-624oo) recorded a few years later; the rhythm section is rather
too formal and Allen fluffs once or twice. At 30 minutes playing-time the
record is also rather short, but it is acoustically much better and its average
jazz quality is only marginally below that of the later recording. The
economics of the record business caused Allen's latter-day music to be rather
poorly represented on record; as an example of his real genius, away from a
rabble-rousing context, this issue is strongly recommended.
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Down Beat's Annual Combo Directory 6/21/62:: “Henry Red Allen” - In recent
years Allen has been rediscovered by critics and praised as the best of the last
of the red-hot trumpeters. When he is good, he's very very good, even if
some of his groups are horrid. representative recording: Verve 1025, Red VV:6/28/62p7 (shortened)
Allen Plays King Oliver
prob mid-late June 62, New Orleans, vacation of Red Allen, CD:6/30/62p17 with
photo on the right side; (compare it with June-59 on page 68)
7/4/62 NBC Today Tv-show,- - HENRY"RED"ALLEN QUARTET: - as 6/5/62
pos. another (d = ?Ronnie Cole as 1/8/63) 9:30 tape, which was; a little bit too fast ,
0:23 female narr. RA-CD-23
2:52 CHERRY -vRA (Don Redman) RA-CD-23 VV:6/28/62p7 (shortened)
1:03 speech by female interviewer with Red Allen about his recently recording session RA-CD-23
and dates in Cleveland, Embers, Indianapolis; Chicago London House ;
0:36 male narr. RA-CD-23
2:53 LOVER COME BACK TO ME (S.Romberg) RA-CD-23
1:41 JUST IN TIME /cut (Comden-Green-Styne) RA-CD-23