It's a distinct pleasure to discover a new musical artist who's got it, who plays or sings with such emotion, intellect, and craft that the performance move and delight.
I had that kind of exciting rush when producer Ralph Jungheim played me a tape by singer Jackie Allen, who's been a regular in Chicago nightspots for close to a decade, but hasn't been heard much beyond the Windy City. And that initial feeling was simply enhanced when I heard Allen sing in person at one of the sessions for Which? I thought, here is an artist who can get into a song, make it meaningful, bring it to life.
The Grammy-winning Jungheim nailed it when he said of Allen, "She's a fine musician and an abundantly talented lady." That musicianship and those talents are in full display on Which? It's the kind of recording that well get her some well-deserved attention beyond the Chicago city limits.
Allen moved to Chicago in 1991. Before that, she was in Milwaukee. And before that - well, let's just start at the beginning.
A Wisconsinite, Allen was born in Brown Deer, a suburb of Milwaukee. Her father, Gene Allen, was a part-time professional tuba player who worked - and still works - in Dixieland and polka bands. Her mother played piano and sang. All her siblings got involved with an instrument of some kind. But Jackie took it seriously. She sang from an early age, and added French horn to her repertoire at age ten, about the time her family moved to McFarland, a suburb of Madison. At twelve, she discovered jazz via the album The Jazz Soul of Porgy and Bess by Bill Potts. She acted and sang in the high school productions and was a member of the State Honors Choir.
Allen attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where, while as Applied Voice major, she spent most of her time in the jazz department. There she studied with bassist Richard Davis, reedman Les Thimmig, who ran the jazz band, and pianist-theorist Joan Wildman. "I got into the big band and that took over everything else," Allen says. "I was the black sheep of the voice department because I kept coming to class with a microphone."
The singer's first professional jobs came while she was in college. In 1983 she made a demo with Davis, Thimmig, and Chicago pianist Eddie Higgins, and worked in the Madison area. Around 1987 she moved to Milwaukee and landed the house gig at the Wyndam hotel working with former Wes Montgomery keyboardist, Mel Rhyne. "I learned so much from him, " Allen says, "like how to swing, how to develop a repertoire. He is a master." During the same period Allen was teaching jazz vocals at the Wisconsin Conservatory in Milwaukee.
When visiting artists at the Wyndam, like saxophonist Branford Marsalis, asked her what she was doing in Milwaukee, Allen started to think Chicago. "It seemed like the next logical step," she says. So she made another demo and pulled up stakes. once in the big city, she thought she'd have trouble getting established but hat didn't prove the case: she got jobs right away. One was at the Moosehead, where the owner, Roger Wolf, served as executive producer for her debut album, 1994's Never Let Me Go (Lakeshore Jazz).
In her Chicago year, Allen has worked places such as Pops for Champagne, The Green Mill, Toulouse, the now-defunct Gold Star Sardine Bar, and Lush Life where she's a regular on Wednesdays. She's also played the main stage of the Chicago JAzz Festival and the Ravinia Jazz Festival. Among her accompanists have been guitarists John Moulder and Dave Bany, and pianists Rhyne, Judy Roberts, Bradley Williams, and Joan Hickey (her partner at Lush Life). Among her bassists have been Eric Hochberg, Larry Kohut, and Hans Sturm. She also stays active as a teacher. For the past five years she's instructed jazz vocals at the Old Town School of Folk Music.
Allen doesn't like to be stylistically boxed in . She feels and affinity for both jazz and pop. "I just sing songs, " she says in the charmingly breathy alto voice. "Whatever comes out, that's for others to define." She cites a range of influences among them Stevie Wonder, Shirley horn, the Beatles, Nancy Wilson, Bonnie Raitt, Joni Mitchell, Mark Murphy, and Rickie Lee Jones.
One way Allen finds her artistic voice is by writing songs. She's composed about 20; Nnenna Freelon covered So Wrong on her Heritage CD. Another is let a range of vocal sounds come out. "I'm a little chameleon-like," she says. "I find I have different voices for different tunes. I use one voice for swing tunes, another for originals,. Different attitude, different person."
Now back to Which? Made over the course of two days in a Los Angeles are studio, this is a choice collection of 15 originals, jazz classics, timeless standards, and solid songs which deserve to be, like our singer, better known.
In this enterprise, Allen was surrounded by a crew of L.A.- based aces. They include pianist Bill Cunliffe, key member of the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra who also served as arranger and co-producer; bassist Jim Hughart, a regular with Natalie Cole; and drummer Roy McCurdy, who's played with Nancy Wilson for about two decades. MAking horn cameos were the blues-drenched tenorman Red Holloway, a former Chicago resident, altoist Gary Foster, one of the mainstays of the Los Angeles studio scene, and trombonist Bruce Paulson, formerly with Doc Severinsen's "Tonight Show Orchestra."
The spiffy opener, Too Hot For Words, was done by Billy holiday in 1955 at a much faster clip than we have here. Allen worked on the arrangement with Bradley Williams and slowed it down. It's a killer now, especially with the tight playing of Cunliffe and Hughart.
Allen ran Billy Strayhorn's succulent Day Dream through some changes, putting the verse of the tune in 6/4, and the bridge in 5/4 -- it's originally in 4/4 in each. "I heard it that way, " she says. "When I do a standard, I want to put my own mark on it, try to make it new somehow." Foster's alto solo is a standout.
Horace Silver's medium blues, Doodlin', had words crafted to it in the '50s by Jon Hendricks, and Allen sings it like it was written for her. Also check out the edgy piano harmony,. "I suggested to Bill hat he play something kind of Monkish," she says. Holloway wails here.
The elegiac Lost In the Stars, from the MAxwell Anderson-Kurt Weill 1949 stage show of the same name, spotlights some riveting Allen. The leader, who had never sung the song before, made it her own in a single take. Then there's an upbeat version of Jerome Kern's Dearly Beloved from the 1942 film, You Were Never Lovelier. Both Foster and Holloway romp here. Their individualistic styles offer great contrast.
Richard Rogers-Lorenz Hart's My Romance from the 1935 musical Jumbo is given a spirited treatment by Allen. "We needed another tune so this one was totally spontaneous," she says. Again, one take.
The leader's In You Go is a popish tune with a Brazilian flair. She wrote it three years ago, after the break up of a long-term love affair. "I thought this could len itself to a jazz reading," Allen says. And she's right. A definite plus is Paulson's big-toned, impassioned trombone solo.
A regal sadness imbues Billie Holiday and Mal Waldron's Left Alone, to which Allen rightly attached a dirge-like feeling. "It's so depressing, it's beautiful," she says. "As I conceived the arrangement, I could see people on the street, walking a dirge."
A contrasting mood is offered by I Was A Little Too Lonely, which Nat King Cole recorded on his acclaimed 1956 After Midnight album. "There was a cuteness about this that made it fun," says Allen. Then we're back to a deeper philosophical stance with the amazing title track, written by Cole Porter for the 1928 show, Paris. Though it's been done is a lighter vein, as by Jeri Southern on her Jeri Southern Meets Cole Porter album, Allen wanted something more reflective. "I liked the question: What do I want in life?" the leader notes. Cunliffe helped here, coming up with the meditative accompaniment as well as the march beat that anchors the piece.
Allen's emotive Admit It reveals her joni Mitchell side. "I wanted the song to be very pure and simple and honest," she says. Again we switch moods with the subsequent and spunky I'm Just A Woman, written by Gail Allen (who since changed her name), sister of singer JAck Jones. "Gail wrote this for Jeri Southern," our Allen says. "When she came by the sessions and hear me do it, she told me she liked my concept."
The bubbling Porter ditty, It's Bad For Me, is from the 1933 musical Nymph Errant. "I wanted a fun, kind of crazy swing feel," say Allen. Holloway adds some delicious tenor tones. Then there's the unusual version of Bobby Troupe's somber The Meaning of the Blues, with just bass and voice. "That was Bill's suggestion and I loved it," says the leader. "Jim's bass sounds gorgeous to me."
Our closer is appropriate, a gentle Latin version of The Last Dance, written by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen for Frank Sinatra. "I was kind of thinking sweet ballad, singing in someone's ear, but Bill had a different idea," Allen says. "I thought, 'Let's see how it goes.'" Well, say I.
despite the fact that she flew in from Chicago, rehearsed for a couple of hours and then recorded with musicians she barely knew, Allen thinks Which? came out fine. "I was very comfortable with everything in the studio." she says. "The musicians and Ralph were all wonderful and nice people. That's important too, that human element. It made me excited that they got into the music, that they gathered to listen to the playbacks. They cared."
That empathy and enthusiasm is replete in these scintillating performances and interpretations. They prove Jackie Allen is one fine singer who definitely has something very worthwhile to share. Which? should help get the word out.
Zan Stewart
Contributor Los Angeles Times, Down Beat, Stereophile
"Jackie Allen is a fine musician and an abundantly talented lady. She's also a down home, genuine human, and a pleasure to work with. You'd never guess she's in show business!"
Ralph Jungheim
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