Ben Allison

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Ben Allison

Ben Allison (born November 17, 1966 in New Haven , Connecticut ) is an American jazz musician ( double bass player , composer and band leader ). His extraordinary double bass playing, which also integrates unusual sound experiments, his complex, multi-layered compositions, which, despite their traditional ties and catchiness, go formally far beyond the song structures commonly used in jazz , and his involvement in various musical projects show him as one of the interesting jazz musicians of his generation out.

Live and act

Together with his long-time musical companion, the pianist Frank Kimbrough , he founded the Herbie Nichols Project , which is entirely dedicated to the music of the late pianist and highly original composer Herbie Nichols . In 1991 he founded the Jazz Composer's Collective, a New York non-profit organization that merged the aesthetics of New York jazz avant-garde with the achievements of modern jazz composition from Duke Ellington to Charles Mingus . For several years he has been running the oriental-inspired bar "Kush" (named after a composition by Dizzy Gillespie ) on the Lower East Side in New York (Orchard Street), where he also regularly appears in a trio with Michael Blake .

With his seven-member band Medicine Wheel, he took up the sound world of Gil Evans . On his album "Peace Pipe" he works with the West African kora player Mamadou Diabaté , another highly virtuoso, cosmopolitan performer from the well-known Griot family, without getting lost in the clichés of ethno-jazz . A quartet with trumpet and guitar reminiscent of Dave Douglas ' Tiny Bell Trio plays an urban, contemporary grooves modern jazz on Cowboy Justice . On Little Things Run the World he integrates Americana influences, especially in the contributions by Steve Cardenas. The most bulky introductions are effortlessly led to moments of pure beauty.

Allison is also active as a member of Michael Blake and Steven Bernstein's Millennial Territory Orchestra .

Discographic notes

  • Seven Arrows (1997)
  • Medicine Wheel (1998)
  • Third Eye (1999)
  • Riding the Nuclear Tiger (2001)
  • Peace Pipe (with Mamadou Diabaté, 2002)
  • Buzz (with the group named after the earlier record Medicine Wheel with Michael Blake (saxophone), Frank Kimbrough (piano), Ted Nash (flute & saxophone), Clark Gayton (trombone) and Michael Sarin (drums), 2004)
  • Cowboy Justice with Ron Horton (trumpet) as co-leader, 2006
  • Little Things Run the World (with Ron Horton (trumpet), Steve Cardenas (guitar), Michael Blake (saxophone) and Michael Sarin (drums), 2008)
  • Action Refraction (2011)
  • 'Ben Allison and Think Free: Layers of the City (Sonic Camera Records, 2017)

Lexigraphic entries

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Allison, Ben
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz musician
DATE OF BIRTH 17th November 1966
PLACE OF BIRTH New Haven , Connecticut