Allen Morrison
As seen in:
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American Songwriter,
The National Interest,
Manager Magazin,
Chief Executive Magazine,
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JAZZIZ MAGAZINE
and
Covers:
jazz, pop music
I listen, write, play piano and write songs. Jazz history lecturer. Regular contributor to DownBeat and other pubs.
Articles by Allen Morrison
Linda May Han Oh & Fabian Amazan: The Beauty of Family
Interview, From the Magazine, Linda May Han Oh, Fabian Almazan By Allen Morrison I Oct. 13, 2026 “I specifically remember Linda walking into class every week with 10-page-long new compositions. I was very inspired — you were very capable,” says Fabian Almazan of meeting his future wife when they were students at Manhattan School of Music.
Harry Skoler Transforms Trauma Into Art
News, From the Magazine, Harry Skoler By Allen Morrison I Sep. 1, 2026 “One day, it just hit me — I wanted to record an album,” said clarinetist Harry Skoler, 18 months after a medical emergency sidetracked his music career. (Photo: Francesco Gargiulli) In January 2018, shortly after Harry Skoler was appointed interim chair of the Woodwinds Department at Boston’s Berklee School of Music, he fell ill suddenly while conducting auditions for applicants.
Emmet Cohen: Messenger of Joy
Interview, From the Magazine, Emmet Cohen By Allen Morrison I Jul. 14, 2026 “We have figured out our show, and people seem to be really connecting with it,” Emmet Cohen says of his band’s current tour, a tribute to Miles Davis and John Coltrane. “The audiences are large and exuberant.
Montreal Jazz Festival: More Is More
By Allen Morrison I Jul. 14, 2026 On the festival’s final night came a duo composed of two one-offs — guitarist Julian Lage and bassist Christian McBride. (Photo: Victor Diaz) I had heard for years about the massive Festival International de Jazz de Montreal (FIJM), the world’s largest jazz festival, but this was the year I finally made it north of the border, at least for the final five days.
Jerome Sabbagh’s Analog Tone Factory
News, From the Magazine, Jerome Sabbagh By Allen Morrison I Mar. 30, 2026 The Jerome Sabbagh Quartet: from left, Nasheet Waits, Joe Martin, Ben Monder and Sabbagh. (Photo: Adrien H. Tillman) When tenor saxophonist Jerome Sabbagh wrote “Lone Jack,” which opens his most recent album, Stand Up (Analog Tone Factory), he wasn’t thinking of any of the tenor players he counts as major influences — Stan Getz, Joe Henderson and Sonny Rollins. He was thinking of Ray Charles.
Maria Schneider Asks Us To Listen to Each Other
Interview, From the Magazine, Maria Schneider By Allen Morrison I Mar. 10, 2026 “These days, with curated news, where people only get half the story, people can’t even speak to family members anymore,” Schneider laments. (Photo: Mark Sheldon) Maria Schneider is doing her part to try to fix what ails America. Which got her thinking about crows, specifically, enraged crows. The multi-Grammy-winning composer and orchestra leader was raised in rural Windom, Minnesota.
Not Just for Kids: A Look at Adult Jazz Camps
By Allen Morrison I Feb. 19, 2026 New Orleans Trad Jazz Camp (Photo: Courtesy New Orleans Trad Jazz Camp) Jazz camps have exploded around the globe as a summertime tradition for working on your chops and making new friends. But camp isn’t just for those in school. Here are two jazz camps that have adults jammin’! Jazz was born in New Orleans, where the city’s annual Trad Jazz Camp mines the motherlode at the source.
Emmet Cohen: Emmet’s Place at the Top
Interview, From the Magazine, Emmet Cohen By Allen Morrison I Nov. 13, 2025 Emmet Cohen grinned as he recalled a joke the comedian Alonzo Bodden told about him on the recent week-long “Journey of Jazz” cruise carrying passengers and performers from Vancouver to Los Angeles. Bodden is the ship’s resident comic. “Sometimes he’ll pick on me and say, ‘Emmet Cohen! You walk around this boat like you’re campaigning for office.
Billy Hart’s Oceans of Wisdom
By Allen Morrison I Nov. 11, 2025 The new memoir by master drummer and bandleader Billy Hart, who turns 85 later this month and is still busy touring and recording, is described as a “musical autobiography,” perhaps a signal to readers not to expect too many revelations about his personal life or spicy tales about his colleagues.
Joe Farnsworth Plays ‘The Big Room’
Interview, From the Magazine, Joe Farnsworth By Allen Morrison I Sep. 23, 2025 When he was 12 years old, the hard-swinging veteran drummer Joe Farnsworth had a fateful encounter with his idol, Max Roach, the bebop pioneer. Prior to that, Farnsworth had already been playing drums and attending jam sessions in and around his hometown of South Hadley, Massachusetts, thanks to his four older brothers, musicians all.
How Leaders Help Teams Manage Stress
Topics Subscribe Share STRESS HAS BECOME a defining feature of modern organizational life. When channeled constructively, stress can act as a powerful motivator — fueling productivity, innovation, and change. Conversely, unmanaged stress can breed dysfunction, lower morale, and lasting psychological harm. Yet most organizations still lack systematic approaches for managing stress across teams.
Kandace Springs Sings Billie Holiday
Interview, From the Magazine, Kandace Springs By Allen Morrison I Jun. 17, 2025 When it came time to pose for the cover of her new album, Lady In Satin — a tribute to Billie Holiday’s 1958 classic LP of torch songs recorded with a full orchestra — the question for Kandace Springs was, “What do I do about the ’fro’?” Springs, a sultry songstress with four previous albums to her credit on Blue Note and other labels, is well known for her luxuriant, cop- per-colored Afro curls.
Brian Charette’s Jack McDuff Homage
News, From the Magazine, Brian Charette By Allen Morrison I Mar. 4, 2025 On the back cover of his latest album, organist Brian Charette is pictured crouching in a kung fu fighting stance. Charette looks fierce but serene, which also evokes his approach to the Hammond B-3.
Renee Rosnes: Brazilian Dreams Come True
Interview, From the Magazine, Renee Rosnes By Allen Morrison I Jan. 16, 2025 In her four-decade career, Renee Rosnes has been recognized as a singular voice, both as a jazz composer and a superlative pianist. She’s also a bandleader, the founder of Artemis — DownBeat readers’ choice as Jazz Group of Year for 2024 — and a favorite side-person of legendary masters including Ron Carter, in whose Foursight Quartet she has been a member for more than a decade.
From ’Bone to Bari … and Back!
News, From the Magazine, Michael Dease, Steve Davis By Allen Morrison I Nov. 5, 2024 To say that Michael Dease is not resting on his laurels would be an understatement. Long considered one of the jazz world’s most accomplished trombonists, both as a leader and as a sideman, he is deeply engaged in establishing himself as a compelling voice on a wholly different instrument, one that isn’t even in the brass family.
Eyal Vilner: ‘It’s All Jazz & All Danceable’
News, From the Magazine, Eyal Vilner Big Band By Allen Morrison I Oct. 15, 2024 When he was a music student in New York back in 2007, hanging out at Smalls every night, Eyal Vilner, much like his classmates at the New School, was in love with bebop and hard-bop — music not usually associated with dancing.
Larry Goldings: Learning To Breathe
News, From the Magazine, Larry Goldings By Allen Morrison I Sep. 4, 2024 A funny thing happened to Larry Goldings on his way to pursuing a career as a jazz pianist: He became a jazz organ master.
San Jose Jazz Summer Fest Feeds Music-Hungry Audiences
Live, Benny Green, Herbie Hancock, Delfeayo Marsalis, Angélique Kidjo By Allen Morrison I Aug. 20, 2024 San Jose Jazz, a nonprofit, has been around since 1986 and produced its first jazz festival 34 years ago in 1990. It has grown steadily thanks to support from a handful of local companies and, importantly, from a music-hungry audience from all over the San Francisco Bay Area.
Johnny Hoy & the Bluefish: Devoted to Classic Blues
By Allen Morrison I Jul. 9, 2024 It’s a typical Wednesday night in January at The Ritz Café in Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard, seven miles offshore from Cape Cod. During the busy summer tourist season, the town is the unofficial nightlife capital of the island, the first stop for most day-trippers stepping off the ferry from the Cape, with bars and restaurants that cater to them. The winter is another story, however.
Luciana Souza, Trio Corrente Bring ‘Cometa’ to Vivid Life
By Allen Morrison I Apr. 23, 2024 Luciana Souza is the most justly renowned Brazilian jazz singer working in the United States. Trio Corrente is Brazil’s most accomplished small jazz group. The long-hoped-for collaboration of the two produced a delightful and Grammy-nominated album last fall, Cometa (Sunnyside), which they brought to vivid life in their first U.S. tour, which began earlier this month at Boston’s Regattabar.
Pittsburgh Fest Returns to Its Roots
By Allen Morrison I Apr. 10, 2024 When jazz fans think about great American cities for this music, Pittsburgh may not be high on their list. But it should be. Consider the giants who were born, raised and established their careers there. Earl Hines. Ahmad Jamal. Art Blakey. Billy Strayhorn. Ray Brown. Mary Lou Williams. Billy Eckstine. For good measure, add Erroll Garner, Kenny Clarke, George Benson, Stanley Turrentine and Jeff “Tain” Watts. All from Pittsburgh.
Il dominio economico della Cina è al punto di flesso?
NEL 2019 AVEVAMO PREVISTO che la Cina avrebbe presto rappresentato il maggior numero di aziende nella lista Fortune Global 500 rispetto a qualsiasi altro Paese. All’epoca sembrava una previsione azzardata, visto che le aziende americane occupavano la prima posizione sin dall’origine della classifica, nel 1995, e che l’economia statunitense era più grande del 50% di quella cinese.
Geri & Kurt: A ‘Lovesome’ Story in Paris
Interview, From the Magazine, Geri Allen, Kurt Rosenwinkel By Allen Morrison I Mar. 12, 2024 “There are a few musicians you hear where, as somebody once said, the molecules in the room change. Geri was one of them.” Kurt Rosenwinkel, the revered American guitarist now making his home in Berlin, was talking about his impressions upon first hearing the late pianist/composer Geri Allen. “It was like somebody had unlocked a door to the universe.
Larry Goldings: The Variety of Fun
Interview, From the Magazine, Larry Goldings By Allen Morrison I Feb. 21, 2024 Are you having any fun? Larry Goldings certainly is. Consider just two recent examples: Scene 1: “If anyone had the blues, it was Beethoven,” says a man with a blond Beatle wig and a pseudo-Austrian accent in a recent YouTube video. He is a character named Hans Groiner, Goldings’ comic alter ego.
Is China’s Economic Dominance at an Inflection Point?
In 2019, we predicted that China would likely account for more companies on the Fortune Global 500 list than any other country. That seemed like a bold prediction at the time, given that American firms had held the number one position since the list’s inception in 1995 and the U.S. economy was 50% larger than China’s. But just one year later, in 2020, China did indeed top the list, with its 124 firms edging out the U.S. at 121 (see here for the Fortune Global 500 data).
Shiri Zorn Finds Her Voice
News, From the Magazine, Shiri Zorn By Allen Morrison I Aug. 15, 2023 As birthday presents for jazz musicians go, it was a good one. Shiri Zorn, an Israeli-born jazz vocalist who lives and performs in Saratoga Springs, New York, about 30 miles north of the state capital, is an ardent fan of the much-admired singer Tierney Sutton. She sometimes fantasized about meeting her, maybe even taking a lesson from her, but it seemed far-fetched.
Newport Jazz Fest Aimed to Please All
Live, Charles Lloyd, Samara Joy, Christian McBride, Diana Krall, Endea Owens, Charles McPherson, James Brandon Lewis, Pedrito Martinez, Scary Goldings, Bill Charlap By Allen Morrison I Aug. 8, 2023 “Something for everybody” was the strategy of the Ed Sullivan Show, the most successful variety show in TV history, and the key to its longevity (it couldn’t have been Sullivan, who had all the personality of an actuary, and that’s unfair to actuaries).
As Newport Fest Curator, McBride Continues Wein’s Programming Vision
By Allen Morrison I Jul. 25, 2023 This year’s Newport Jazz Festival, scheduled for Aug. 4–6, will continue George Wein’s strategy of presenting a mix of artists, established and emerging, young and old, representing all contemporary styles of jazz, from superstars like Herbie Hancock and Diana Krall, to much-heralded newcomers like Samara Joy and James Brandon Lewis.
Kendrick Scott: In Search of Implied Harmony
Interview, From the Magazine, Kendrick Scott By Allen Morrison I May. 23, 2023 Kendrick Scott loves harmony at least as much as he loves rhythm, possibly more. “To me, one of the most beautiful things in music is harmony, like pianos and guitars,” the drummer and composer says. “The lush feeling of harmony is neck-and-neck with rhythm for me. I think I’m a weird drummer in that way.
DownBeat Magazine
Volume 90, Number 5 BUY THIS ISSUE | SUBSCRIBE Cover Wayne Shorter A Final Interview By Michael Jackson In a very special issue of DownBeat, we say goodbye to the great Wayne Shorter with one of his last interviews captured in 2022 by writer/photographer Michael Jackson. Our tribute also includes thoughts on his early days in Newark, New Jersey by Phillip Lutz and Shorter in Los Angeles by Josef Woodard.
Delfeayo Marsalis is Soooo New Orleans!
March 24, 2023 · 11:39 am “In Canada once, a student asked me, ‘How do you reconcile what you want to play with what the audience wants to hear?’ And I said, ‘Man, as I get older, I really want to play music that people want to hear.’ I don’t even understand what the question is.” From my interview with the delightful Delfeayo Marsalis in the March issue of DownBeat. Like this: Like Loading... Related
Delfeayo Marsalis: Soooo New Orleans!
Interview, From the Magazine, Delfeayo Marsalis By Allen Morrison I Mar. 14, 2023 The most famous brothers in jazz are scattered. Wynton lives in Manhattan. Branford settled in North Carolina. Jason moved to France for a while, then returned to New Orleans. Only Delfeayo Marsalis never left New Orleans.
Cuba Across the Generations
The last time Hilario Duran, the 69-year-old Cuban Canadian piano master and composer, teamed up with another pianist was in 2017, when he performed duets at a concert in Germany with his legendary friend and fellow Cuban émigré Chucho Valdés, accompanied by the WDR Big Band. Until now. Recently Toronto producer Peter Cardinali asked Duran to create an album for his Alma label.
Readers Poll Winner / Snarky Puppy: A Different Kind of Big Band
By Allen Morrison I Nov. 23, 2022 If you ask Michael League, founder, chief composer and cat-herder of the 19-member jazz-funk-rock-world juggernaut known as Snarky Puppy, to recall the largest crowds for which the group has ever played, he answers immediately. “As a headliner? About 6,000 at the Royal Albert Hall, 2019,” he said via Zoom from Barcelona, near his home in the tiny village of Prats Del Rei, Spain. And the smallest? “On my birthday, April 24, in 2012 or 2013.
Geri Allen Enters the DownBeat Hall of Fame
News, From the Magazine, Geri Allen By Allen Morrison I Jul. 26, 2022 Everybody wanted to play with Geri Allen — Ornette Coleman, Betty Carter, Ron Carter and Tony Williams, Charlie Haden and Paul Motian, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette, Esperanza Spalding, David Murray, Terri Lyne Carrington, and on and on.
Geri Allen Enters the DownBeat Hall of Fame (DownBeat, Aug. 2022)
July 13, 2022 · 7:40 pm It was an honor to celebrate the innovative pianist/composer Geri Allen on her induction into the DownBeat Hall of Fame. For this article in the August 2022 issue, I spoke to her manager and close friend, Ora Harris, who generously shared many wonderful stories with me; her collaborator and friend, the masterful drummer and composer Terri Lyne Carrington; and Jana Herzen of Motéma Records, her last label before Geri’s untimely passing at age 60.
DownBeat Magazine
Volume 89, Number 8 BUY THIS ISSUE | SUBSCRIBE Cover Jon Batiste The Critics Choice for… Jazz Artist of the Year Beyond Artist of the Year & Beyond Album of the Year By Suzanne Lorge On the surface of things, it seems counterintuitive that critics would name the same musician both Jazz Artist of the Year and Beyond Artist of the Year, until you learn that the musician in question is Jon Batiste, and suddenly the double billing makes sense.
New Mingus Recordings for his Centennial Year
News, From the Magazine, Charles Mingus By Allen Morrison I May. 24, 2022 Charles Mingus’ centennial year will see a bounty of new recordings — both historical offerings and ambitious new works inspired by his influence.
Charles Mingus @ 100
By Allen Morrison I May. 24, 2022 Jazz has seen its share of legendary personalities — Buddy Bolden, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, so many others — but there has never been anybody in jazz quite like Charles Mingus. Finally recognized toward the end of his life as one of America’s most significant composers, Charles Mingus’ reputation has only grown since his death in 1979 from the degenerative nerve disease ALS at the age of 56.
The Education of Camille Thurman
May 5, 2022 · 4:14 pm Thurman was the first woman to tour and perform full time with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. (Photo: Courtesy of Camille Thurman) Imagine if Sarah Vaughan played saxophone like Dexter Gordon. That’s approximately the effect when the xx-year-old singer and tenor saxophonist @CamilleThurman performs. She told me about her struggles with sexism and crippling self-doubt in my interview with her, from the March 2022 @DownBeatMag.
The Education of Camille Thurman
Interview, From the Magazine, Camille Thurman By Allen Morrison I Apr. 5, 2022 Here’s a question: How many tenor saxophonists would feel comfortable stepping into John Coltrane’s shoes to perform his transcendent A Love Supreme with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and Wynton Marsalis? A second question: How many of them are women?
Coming Soon: A Mingus Appreciation
March 1, 2022 · 3:15 pm Charles Mingus – prolific American composer, bass virtuoso, memoirist, poet, notorious truth teller, and all-around badass – would have turned 100 years old this year. I was delighted when @DownBeatMag asked me to write an appreciation of Mingus and his place in jazz history – delighted, and a bit intimidated. How on earth could I summarize his life and contributions to jazz in six magazine pages, give or take? You can judge how well I did soon.
Russian Jazz Star Igor Butman Celebrates 60 in Style
News, From the Magazine, Igor Butman By Allen Morrison I Feb. 22, 2022 Igor Butman played two huge concerts in Russia to celebrate his birthday. (Photo: Courtesy Igor Butman) Former President Bill Clinton has called him “my favorite living saxophone player.” Wynton Marsalis, a longtime friend and collaborator, once said of him, “I love Igor Butman’s playing, and I love him personally.” Butman is a superstar in Russia but is less well known and underappreciated in the United States.
Pete Malinverni: Before & After
Pete Malinverni (photo: Sally Green) Few things are more intimidating for a musician than playing in front of your idols. In 1985, Pete Malinverni, a 28-year-old itinerant jazz pianist who had been trying to make a dent in the New York City jazz scene for four years, landed a steady gig at a swanky waterfront restaurant in Long Island City, across the East River from Manhattan.
Nnenna Freelon: Before & After
Nnenna Freelon recently released her 11th album and first studio album in a decade, despite—but also, in a sense, because of—her personal travails of the last five years. After her husband, the noted architect Philip Freelon, was diagnosed with ALS, Nnenna became his primary caregiver. It was a devastating three-year decline as the neurodegenerative disease rendered him increasingly helpless until his death in 2019, the year of their 40th anniversary.
Ches Smith Runs the Vodou Down
News, From the Magazine, Ches Smith By Allen Morrison I Sep. 7, 2021 Ches Smith (center, seated), with the cross-cultural octet We All Break, explores his fascination with Vodou drumming on Path Of Seven Colors. (Photo: Mimi Chakarova) Drummer/composer Ches Smith got into Vodou drumming almost by accident. As a graduate student studying music at Mills College in Oakland, California, he was asked to accompany an Afro-Haitian dance class back in 2000.
Roxana Amed Mixes Cultures on Ontology
Argentine expat jazz singer/composer Roxana Amed knows something about being a stranger in a strange land. She also knows how to adapt, meet like-minded musicians, and forge deep creative partnerships. Amed can, and does, sing anything, from Argentine classical music to Joni Mitchell, from Monk to the American Songbook. But she shies away from tango. “It’s too dark and dramatic for me,” she told me recently in a Zoom call from her Miami home. “It’s very Italian, a little too intense.
The Legacy of Lyle Mays Is on Display in Eberhard, His Final Recording
In the spectrum of jazz, with well-considered composition on one end of the continuum and free jazz on the other, Lyle Mays, the late pianist, keyboard whiz and composer, was a proponent of classical principles: “a champion of structure, organization, deep rational thought, philosophical rigor and order,” as he once told an interviewer. And he was never afraid to create something emphatically, defiantly beautiful.
DownBeat Magazine
Volume 89, Number 12 BUY THIS ISSUE | SUBSCRIBE Cover Kenny Barron 87th Annual DownBeat Readers Poll Results Kenny Barron Enters the DB Hall of Fame! By Paul de Barros When pianist Kenny Barron heard he had been elected to the DownBeat Jazz Hall of Fame, his immediate response was to deflect attention from himself.
‘A Night in Anzio’ Celebrates Return of Live Jazz in Europe
News, Igor Butman, Camille Thurman, Alexander Beets, Sylwester Ostrowski, Freddie Hendrix, Endea Owens, Jakub “Mizer” Mizeracki, Francesco Bruno By Allen Morrison I Jul. 20, 2021 A formidable front line in Anzio: Camille Thurman (left), Sylwester Ostrowski, Igor Butman, Freddie Hendrix and Alexander Beets.
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