Red Allen Chapters 9 - The Jazz Archive

downward slide in the late 1940's and through the fifties and
into the early 1960's ... The solid and reputable jazz of those
years, bereft of the publicity attendant to the Big Band Era,
was buried deep, drowned by the flowing prose of the
intellectual who kept saying jazz was an art form. To which
an old friend of Red Allen's, Eddie Condon, once snapped,
"canning peaches is an art form!"
Here we have "Red" in two performances at the London
House, with the venerable Sammy Price on piano, Franklin
Skeete on bass and Jerry Potter on drums. The boys play
some evergreens, like "DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT MEANS
TO MISS NEW ORLEANS," but they do not type-cast
themselfes. All right, I know Allen was born in New Orleans
but so was Lester Young. Must “Red” always remain in
Louis Armstrong's shadow, as did another stand-out horn,
that of Oran "Hot Lips" Page! You want to dig “Red” when
he was young and hungry! Trot out the Fletcher Henderson
version of QUEER NOTIONS and listen in. Or, better yet,
play this one ... listen to "Red" on such things as
TENDERLY, and AUTUMN LEAVES and in a more
finger snapping mood, ALL OF ME and LOVE IS JUST
AROUND THE CORNER. You get the point... here was
one great jazzman, adept in all ways, articulate on his
instrument and most liberal in his ideas, his creativity, his
attitude.
To go further on this "type-casting" aura that has chocked
many musicians, pay some attention to Sam Price ... come on
, listen up there ... follow "Red's" instruction at the end of the
number to "play it again, Sam." I guess he saw that movie,
too.
Price, born in Honey Grove, Texas and there's a name for
you, is a sound and tested music , yet he's locked into the
barrelhouse and boogie woogie syndrome. He plays excellently
in those areas, rollicking, rocking piano, but that's not
his entire bag and it never was. As a young man he pursued
classical piano (studied with Booker T.Washington's daughter)
and he knows his way up and down the keyboard ... dig him
on those ballads ... a nice touch, a gentle swing, a relaxed
approach. Try him and Allen on the old Earl Hines
standby, ROSETTA, and then move along faster with BILL
Jack Sohmer about FANFARE-24-124 in IAJRC-?p25:
It may come as somewhat of a shock to newer devotees
of our music, but the fact is that there is as much prejudicial
thinking within the world of jazz as there is outside of it. I
do not refer necessarily to racial or religious prejudice,
but to a sort equally frustrating to the artist. This is
aesthetic or stylistic prejudice, a form of bigotry so
pernicious that at one time it threatened to split the jazz
world in two. Happily most of us have come of age in the
ensuing years. We have learned that different types of jazz
can coexist peacefully, each pursuing its own aesthetic
goals, each a dominant source of enlightenment and
pleasure within its own milieu. But there are still the
victims to care for, those who served no king but
themselves, who claimed no allegiance to any doctrine
save their own, yet who remain exiled in a no man's land
of jazz, forever disowned, forever rejected - and simply
because of critical myopia.
Henry "Red" Allen was undeniably a major casualty of
jazz' internecine struggles. A far-seeking visionary at a
time when dance bands were still using banjos, he lived to
find himself degraded as a cheapened sideshow minstrel
playing noisy, caricatured dixieland in a sleazy New York
tourist trap to an audience of drunken servicemen, dissolute
prodigals, and world-weary street-walkers. Red may have
hated the Metropole and everything it stood for, but he
also had to earn a living. True, he played to the crowds in
order to survive but spiritually, as well as physically, he
loomed far above them. He had long before learned that
the creative artist must find his own way In a hostile,
uncaring environment, and if it meant public submission
of his own interests for a few hours a night, so be it.
Every now and then, though, he simply had to break
loose. He had to play what he wanted to play.
When Red was fortunate enough to find respite from the
Metropole and Central Plaza - that even more depressing
Philistine fortress hidden in the bowels of Manhattan – he
- 95 -
BAILEY COMING HOME. Here is a master of piano, much
more a musician in depth than the one dimensional player the
jazz media has made him out to be. Price is a pianist whom
any style of jazz can turn to and if I almost ended a sentence
with a preposition I at least was working on a sound
proposition.
The September 22 date opens with a blast as you spread
your living arms out into space, do the eagle rock with style
and grace, put your both feet out and swing them back, 'cause
that's what they call BALLIN' THE JACK. Too bad Red didn't
sing this one, its five meaning lyrics always graceful to the ear
and Red's gutteral growl had the gumption this one requires.
Red and the boys came to play this night, and you can hear the
audience sound off their appreciation. Better, you can hear the
boys urge each other along and that's the best praise for a
jazzman, to be appreciated by another jazzmen.
If what I said about Price a few lines back didn't sink in, well
it ought to if you listen to SNOWY MORNING BLUES.
Sammy handles Jame P.Johnson's standard in grand style. He's
still active as this is written and frequently is heard on the jazz
shows produced by WKCR, Columbia University's student
station, run by young men who have a good feeling for jazz
and a fine manner of presenting it.
BASIN STREET BLUES, a jazz anthem to many although
that's stretching the point about 64 bars (how about HOW
HIGH THE MOON, ONE O'CLOCK JUMP, BODY AND
SOUL, send in your choice of jazz´s anthem with the cover of
an Ornette Coleman LP... ) typifies the Allen quartet and
showcases this grand old-timer, who had the face of a sad, sad
bloodhound but the heart of a happy child and the soul of a
man that made him credit to his Creator. The old chest-nut gets
into a deep water groove, swings mightily (the audience joins
in with handclapping, on the wrong beat as usual) and Red has
a field day, as do Skeete Potter and particulary Price. If this
doesn't get to you then go to jail, do not pass "Go," do not
collect the $200.
My favourite Red Allen offering asks WHO STOLE THE
LOCK! and details how he was down in the henhouse on his
knees, thought he heard a chicken sneeze. But this will do for
my tastes ... this will do fine, indeed.
literally plunged into the rejuvenating waters of selffullfillment.
Reveling in the luxury of artistic independence,
he was free to indulge himself in all manner of musical
subtleties and especially in that form he had helped father -
the jazz ballad. His requirements for such brief psychic
retreats were really quite modest. All he needed was a
compatible rhythm section. The knowledge that he did not
have to play “The Saints” every set made everything that
much nicer.
Once of the several far-removed havens in which Red
found periodic relief, Chicago London House, afforded the
trumpet player not only for musical freedom, but peace of
mind as well. And probably not since his classic small band
recording dates of the thirties did he sound as relaxed as
when ensconced in his polite eatery. He was able to give
free rein to his customarily submerged inventiveness, and,
because the acoustics of the room obviated the need for
excessive volume, he could devote his full attention to
tonal nuance. …
The proof is all here. With the masterful stride piano of
Sammy Price sharing the honors, and the yeomanly rhythm
team of Skeete and Potter providing the right balance of
urgency and restraint, Red sounds more at home than he
ever did on his own turf, that mixed metaphor of security
and frustration that constituted his gigs in New York. The
sound quality of the London House remotes was remarkably
realistic, as those familiar with the 1963 Coleman
Hawkins airchecks will already know. But only close Allen
aticionados will recognize that Price was his pianist on the
long deleted Columbia quartet album ("Feeling Good", CL
2447) and that Skeete and Potter were his choices for the
equally elusive Swingville set ("Mr. Allen", SV-2034),
testimonial enough to indicate their familiarity with the
highly personal and unpredictable style that has yet, even
today, to receive its proper recognition.