Red Allen Chapters 9 - The Jazz Archive

- 111 -
1964 throughout at the Metropole, houseband: HENRY "RED" ALLEN Quartet incl.Sammy Price or His All Stars
except when on his tour through England 4/16-ca.5/7/64
"HENRY "HENRY "RED" "RED" ALLEN ALLEN IS IS THE THE MOST MOST MOST AVANTGARDE
AVANTGARDE
TRUMPET TRUMPET PLAYER PLAYER IN IN NEW NEW YORK YORK CITY
CITY
TRUMPET PLAYER IN NEW YORK CITY" by Don Ellis in Down Beat 1/28/64:
Every time
I have gone
to the Metropole
to see
Henry (Red)
Allen during
the last two
or three
years, I have
said to myself, "It can't be true. He must
just be having a very good night. All
those wild things he is doing must just
be lucky accidents! After all, he's been
around almost as long as Louis, and it is
simply impossible that he could be
playing that modern."
Well, a few weeks ago, after hearing
Red on a slow Tuesday night with only
a handful of people in the club-the type
of night that would be very uninspiring
to most artists -I became convinced that
Red Allen is the most creative and avantgarde
trumpet player in New York.
What other trumpet player plays such
asymetrical rhythms and manages to
make them swing besides? What other
trumpeter plays ideas that may begin as
a whisper, rise to a brassy shout, and
suddenly become a whisper again, with
no discernable predictability? Who else
has the amazing variety of tonal colors,
bends, smears, half-valve effects, rips,
glissandos, flutter-tonguing (a favorite
on a high D), all combined with iron
chops and complete control of even the
softest, most subtle, tone production?
What makes all this even more incredible
is the fact that he does all this
within a "mainstream" context and with
a flair for showmanship that appears to
keep the squarest entertained.
The arrangements the group plays are
consistently interesting: no overlong
solos, imaginative balancing of ensembles
and solos, tasteful featuring of the
other members of the band. His patter
between sets is hilarious and, again,
never quite predictable - as drummer
Jake Hanna (a wit in his own right), who
was working opposite him and has heard
him hundreds of times, pointed out to
me that Tuesday.
Henry Allen Jr. was born in Algiers,
La., in 1908. He was playing with
clarinetist George Lewis in 1923 and
worked on the river boats with Fate
Marable. About 1927 he was with King
Oliver in Chicago; 1933 found him with
Fletcher Henderson, and in the period of
1937 to 1940 he played with Louis
Armstrong's big band. This means he
was in on almost the very beginnings of
jazz and has been in there ever since.
It is phenomenal that he is still one of
the most exciting, creative jazz players
of all time.
I am reminded of a couple years ago
when I was on vacation in New Orleans
and had the opportunity to hear a band
that had George Lewis and Slow Drag
Pavageau among its members. None of
the personnel in the band looked younger
than 60, and Slow Drag was about
74 (some of them might have been older
than that). They played in a place that
looked like an old barn, and the only
remuneration they received was that
dropped into a hat by the few customers
who sat on the floor and benches. Nevertheless,
this was one of my most
memorable and exciting jazz listening
experiences. These men played with
more fire, feeling, and swing than
almost anything I had ever heard before.
Slow Drag played the bass with
unbelievable drive, never once letting
up. And they played long sets.
At the same time their music was, in
its way, creative. That is, within the
limits they had set for themselves, each
appeared to be creating fresh ideas. I
noticed how greatly this contrasted with
some other players of "older" styles (and
even new ones) whom I had heard, the
ones who are much too prevalent, who
seem merely to repeat in a rather lackadaisical
way the same things they have
been doing, or heard others do, thousands
of times before. I was astonished,
because these men were different. One
of the reasons is probably that they
forged the style they are still playing
today, and the framework is broad
enough for them still to create within it.
Which brings me back to Red Allen.
There are countless "influences" on
Red's style no doubt, but he is able to
use these in a completely original way
and still create within the style. He is
one of the major jazz improvisers, in the
truest sense of the word.
Other trumpeters may be able to play
faster or higher than Red (al-though his
facility and range are remarkable), but
no one has a wider scope of effects to
draw upon, and no one is more subtle
rhythmically and in the use of dynamics
and asymetrical phrases than Henry
(Red) Allen.
These things make him the most avantgarde
trumpet player in New York, and
if one thinks this is exaggerated, he had
better go and listen to Red again - closely.
Another admirer of Red Allen's playing was Miles Davis, who guested the Metropole regularly and stated that “Red
Allen was a musicians' musician.” below due to the 62/6/5 session on p103