A CHILD IS BORN
Despite
its time-honored traditions and universally familiar iconography,
Christmas remains a holiday celebrated by each family and even each
individual in their own personal style. Pianist/composer Geri Allen offers her own interpretation with A Child Is Born,
a collection of traditional and original Christmas music that is
profound and exuberant, solemn and joyous, spiritual and intimate.
Allen's third release for Motéma Music is a solo sequel to her critically acclaimed solo debut, 2010's Flying Toward the Sound. Where that release paid tribute to three of her creative inspirations - Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, and Cecil Taylor - A Child Is Born
honors equally meaningful but perhaps even more deeply entrenched
influences: family and spirituality. She refers to the album as "a
joyous Christmas celebration and remembrance of a childhood where love
was always unconditional."
This holiday offering finds Allen at a particularly celebratory time of life. Her tandem 2010 releases on Motéma, the solo, Flying Toward the Sound, and the quartet, Timeline Live,
have shown her to be at the top of her game, gaining unanimous acclaim
internationally and jostling with each other for space on numerous
year-end top ten lists. A 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship helped Allen
facilitate her debut solo project on Motéma; and Timeline Live,
which features the startlingly talented Maurice Chestnut on
'tap-percussion,' has been selling out houses world wide and garnered a
career first for Allen: an NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding
Jazz Album, alongside Herbie Hancock, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Wynton
Marsalis, and Bobby McFerrin. National respect for Allen as a virtuosic,
innovative performer, composer, and educator (she is currently an
Associate Professor of Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation at the
University of Michigan) is undeniable, as evidenced by two powerful
recent honors of 2011.She was invited to perform in honor of the
historic Dr. Martin Luther King Monument Unveiling this August in
Washington D.C.
A Child Is Born
is dedicated to Allen's family, in particular to her father, Mount
Allen, Jr. and mother, Barbara Jean Allen. "I am privileged and blessed
to have grown up as the child of Barbara Jean and Mount Vernell Allen,
Jr.," she says. "I know God loved me because He gave them to my brother
Mount and I. Memories of many loving Christmases with family remain as
affirmations of the beauty of life and God's never-ending love. Today, I
share these timeless melodies and personal remembrances with my own
children."
Allen
is also sharing this intimate celebration of Christmas with her
extended family, her audience. These melodies of the celebration
resonate with a reverence and awe that has remained an essential element
of her playing throughout her remarkable career.
"These
beautiful songs are so much a part of our cultural memories of the
Christmas season," Allen says, "so I wanted to honor each melody and
evoke the feeling of 'the dance' as the foundation for every
performance. The textures, harmonies and improvisations are fluid and
very spontaneous."
While
she insists on each familiar melody expressing itself in a pure, direct
fashion, her treatment marks each as uniquely expressive. The album
begins with the abundantly joyful chamber-swing of "Angels We Have Heard
on High," immediately followed by the hushed solemnity of "A Child Is
Born," inspired by and dedicated to piano icon, Hank Jones. Allen has
always felt a direct connection with Mr. Jones, both musically and
through their connection to Pontiac, Michigan, where Jones, Allen, and
Allen's mother were all born.
Allen
excels at communicating the meaning of traditional carols through her
evocative interpretations. "We Three Kings" illuminates the mystery and
exoticism of the Magi's search, gradually growing in expectation through
the sustained narrative of Allen's improvisations. "Little Drummer Boy"
is a portrait of its title character through both the pianist's
percussively insistent left hand and the innocent wonder of its melody,
while "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" is a vivid snow-covered landscape
under bright moonlight. And the birth of Christ itself is rendered with
the stark beauty of stained glass via a medley of "Away in a Manger,"
"What Child Is This?" and "Silent Night."
Of
course, the traditions that Allen herself experienced growing up in
Detroit, also find their way into her expression of the nativity. On
both "Imagining Gena at Sunrise" and Imagining Gena at Sunset," she
ventures as far afield as Ethiopia, to offer her rendition of the
traditional melody that is sung during the Christmas season. She creates
two striking reinterpretations of that melody on Fender Rhodes, Farfisa
organ, and concert celeste. "I am very inspired by Ethiopian music and
culture," Allen says, "and the joy of Christmas is alive in this
melody."
Other
travels also proved inspirational to this recording. Allen was invited
to perform at the first Jerusalem Jazz Festival in 2006 and seized upon
the opportunity to pray at the Western Wall, see the Dead Sea Scrolls,
and visit Bethlehem. She recreates that experience on "Journey to
Bethlehem," where the resonate spoken voice of Dr. Farah Griffin, along
with Carolyn Brewer's beautiful singing, serve as affirmations of
intention. "We're going to take this journey..."
While
in Jerusalem, Ms. Allen visited the Church of the Nativity, where she
was deeply moved by the beauty of, "a fourteen-point silver star,
beneath the altar in the Grotto of the Nativity, which marks the spot
believed to be the birthplace of Jesus."
That
visit led directly to Allen's setting of the text of Matthew 1:23 "GOD
Is with Us," an original piece which captures the wondrous optimism of
her religious convictions. This piece leads into an interpretation of
"Amazing Grace" possessed of a tender gratitude - this hymn, although
not a traditional Christmas song, fits perfectly within Allen's theme of
gratitude and celebration.
Traditions
from separate places and cultures also have a tendency to cross paths
and meld together, a concept that Allen explores in gorgeous fashion on
"Emmanuel I," one of two settings of the traditional plainsong melody "O
Come, O Come Emmanuel." The haunting voices of the women of Gee's Bend,
Alabama, a special community whose stunning quilts have been showcased
in leading art museums around the country, are interwoven with the
ancient chant, creating a richly soulful, and meditative experience
"Let
Us Break Bread Together," the communion hymn, is fitting as an
invocation of a sacred place where so many families unite to renew
bonds, relive old memories and create new ones. It's the perfect way to
end this Christmas journey, followed only by a reprise of the
reverential "Emmanuel" melody.
"I
extend my warmest wishes and expressions of gratitude to our family and
to old and new friends and fans here at home and afar," Allen says in
summation of her artist notes. "For the joy of Christmas is something we
can all share."
UPCOMING GERI ALLEN WORLDWIDE PERFORMANCES:
*October 22 | Walt Disney Concert Hall | Los Angeles, CA
November 11 | The Kennedy Center - Tribute To Dr. Billy Taylor,
Music Director | Washington D.C.
November 24 - December 7 | TIMELINE European Tour | Various Cities
December 9 - 11 | Scullers - TRIO w/ Esperanza Spalding & Terri Lynn Carrington |
Boston, MA
December 17 | Bethany Church | Newark, NJ
*December 18 | NJPAC | Newark, NJ
January 10 - 15, 2012 | Village Vanguard - TRIO w/
Esperanza Spalding & Terri Lynn Carrington | New York, NY
* Indicates performances as a part of "Sing The Truth"
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