Music Style JAZZ

Artist History After graduating from McGill University's Jazz Studies Program, Mike Allen stayed in Montreal to begin his professional career as a member of the jazz sextet Urban Turbans (winner - Lowenbrau Quebec Jazz Search, finalist - DuMaurier National Jazz Competition). With the Urban Turbans, Mike Allen began to build a reputation as a hard-swinging tenor saxman. Allen started to perform and record with the finest musicians on Montreal's music scene as well as internationally recognized players such as Kenny Wheeler, Ed Thigpen, Branford Marsalis, Grover Washington Jr., Don Thompson and Peter Leitch. Allen was the saxophonist of choice for recording projects on both guitarist Sonny Greenwich and drummer Pete Magadini albums. Around this time, Allen started his own group to record performances with CBC, perform at Canadian and International Jazz Festivals, record QUINTET / QUARTET and tour Poland. Allen then picked up roots and moved to New York to study with saxophone greats Joe Lovano and David Liebman. He earned his Master's Degree in Jazz before picking up again to head for Vancouver. Once established in the West Coast scene, Allen began performing with Claude Ranger, Chuck Israels, Larry Fuller, Dan Fahnele as well as local giants, Brad Turner, Oliver Gannon, and Miles Black. After recording ONE STEP CLOSER, Allen and his Vancouver quartet toured Canada before attacking the Pacific Northwest with a group featuring legends Don Friedman and Chuck Israels. On that same tour, Allen performed in San Francisco and Seattle at the Jazz Alley with some of the areas finest players including longtime Jimmy Smith drummer, Donald Bailey and trumpet/tenor whiz Jay Thomas. After releasing ONE SIDE OF A CIRCLE, Mike Allen began dividing his time between Bellingham (teaching at Western Washington University) and Vancouver (teaching at Capilano College) while maintaining a hectic schedule of touring and performing with some of the finest International and local musicians. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Albums Quintet Quartet, One Step Closer, One side of A Circle, Change is.

Press Reviews REVIEWS"Tenor man Mike Allen, whose career has taken him from Montreal and New York to Vancouver, invades The Rex on Wednesday with bassist Darren Radtke and drummer Dave Robbins. With his big, lyrical tones and driving attack he'll be establishing the stirring sounds of Sonny Rollins' famed trio. Some of that approach is on his new CD "Change Is" (Maximum Jazz), on which he composed five of the ten tunes. Allen has an adventurous edge to his phrasing, smartly lags behind the beat and delivers long, energizing solo lines ("The Difference Between Us"), Joe-Henderson-style elegance ("Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing") and post-bop hustle ("At The Mark"). His tone is nearer to Johnny Griffin than Rollins but he's comfortable at all tempos and in all modes." Geoff Chapman (Toronto Star, Thursday, March 30, 2000) "...The trio was playing music from Allen's fourth CD, "Change Is" (Maximum Jazz), just now in release. Like the CD, Wednesday's first set began with George Gershwin's "Love Walked In". On disc, Robbins brushes his way quietly through an introductory solo chorus; at the club, he wisely had his sticks out, the better to give the triio a little extra presence right off the bat. Allen freely acknowledges the influence of Sonny Rollins on this trio and played "Love Walked In" very much in the great American tenor saxophonist's spirit - that broad billowy tone, and those slow-moving but deceptively mobile phrases. Allen remained - like Rollins before him - a supremely melodic improviser." Mark Miller (Globe and Mail, Friday, April 7, 2000) (from a review of a Mike Allen Trio performance at the Rex (Toronto, Canada) on April 5th, 2000)"One of Canada's top tenormen" Jim Little, Hour Weekly, Montreal "Among the most gifted young players in Canada" Renee Doruyter, The Province, Vancouver "Allen has a husky, breathy tone and a minimalist conception that imbues his spacefilled solos with deep emotion." Joseph Blake, Times Colonist, Victoria"Allen's smooth and soulful tones turn up the heat so slowly you don't even realize he's melted you into listening submission until you're a goner. That he lives up to his rep as a total pro and gentleman on stage and off only adds to the atmosphere, making Allen a treat to hear in any setting." Josephine Ochej, The Jazz ReviewChange Is • Maximum Jazz MAX 0065 This time out the tenorman Allen, one of the most brilliant musicians to come out of McGill, leads a trio with a pair of BC-based heavies (Darren Radtke on bass and Dave Robbins on drums). The 10-track program is a varied one, ranging from memorable originals through standards, a Johnny Hodges blues and the theme from Streetcar Named Desire. Allen just gets better and better! Len Dobbin, Mirror (Montreal) April 6-13, 2000One Side of a Circle • Almus CD 003 • 1999Vancouver tenor saxophonist Mike A!len must have had a difficult time trying to decide whether to go with a small combo or a larger unit, and so, he splits the difference. Four of the eight Allen compositions on One Side of a Circle are for quartet (Allen, guitarist Bill Coon, bassist Darren Radtke, drummer David Robbins), while the remaining four are performed by an octet (the quartet rounded out by Brad Turner on trumpet and flugelhorn, Jill Townsend on trombone, Dave Say on tenor saxophone and Miles Black on piano". Either way, the band presents some serious, and occasionally playfull, straight-ahead jazz. Allen is a strong mainstream player who sometimes shows the earthy huskiness of Joe Henderson, and the swing instincts of Chris Potter, two sides of him evident on the quartet number Profit and Suffering. Allen can be a robust bebopper, building chorus after chorus on Rollins' Roots, also a quartet tune (hints of the influence of Sonny Rollins are everywhere on this record). The octet tunes are a full musical meal, with Black's work on piano proving he is one of the best jazz pianists in the country. Quintet / Quartet • 1995 It is tempting to think of Mike Allen's (Quintet/Quartet) as two distinct albums, so different are the two ensembles in stylistic approach and musical reach. Even the sound from the two sessions - recorded by the same team at CBC-Montreal - is remarkably dissimilar. The only common ground is the leader's full-bodied tenor and subtle compositions.The quintet takes the stage first, launcing into Allen's One Side of a Circle with such quiet purpose and intent focus that by the end of the first phrase you are fully under their spell.The beautiful, menacing, slightly overdriven guitar of Benoit Charest claims first rights to solo and delivers fluid lines that are at once relaxed and full of latent energy. Allen's tenor follows - bright, dynamic and challenging - probing deep into the musical ferment. Beneath him, bassist Alec Walkington and drummer Dave Robbins build a propulsive wall of sound. Tilden Webb tempers the fires with a reflective turn at the piano, remarkable for its thick-handed reharmonizations and delicate melodic touch. The remaining four compositions of the quintet set are no less awesome, each featuring a combination of compelling soloing and seamless, deeply grooving ensemble work.McCoy Tyner's Blues On The Corner enjoys a decade-spanning treatment encompassing Allen's '50s-style R&B wails, Charest's acid-tinged '60s rock and Webb's nod to the Herbie Hancock Headhunter days. The Robbins ballad Then There Was You offers a lovely but all too brief solo turn for Walkington. Allen's Luna Crescente is a long, complex and hauntingly beautiful ballad, somewhat in the style of Coltrane's Central Park West, which manages to be completely satisfying in spite of one harmonic sequence which confounds each soloist (the composer included) in turn. The set ends with a gently swinging original, Something For Tony, which patiently gathers intensity over the course of solos by Webb and Charest, building to Allen's searing denouement.The quartet of the second set is an intriguing pairing of tenor, trombone, bass and drums. Things start off promisingly with the bright, boppish Nette's 'Cept. Both Allen and trombonist David Grott excel in the wide-open soundscape and deliver over-the-top solos. Wiser Than I and Your Kind Brings Joy tease with good ideas - both compositionally and in performance - but fail to sustain the kind of energy that infuses the rest of the disc.Bassist Doug Weiss and drummer Marc Miralta never quite sound comfortable, unable to dig down into the music the way their quintet counterparts do. This is due at least in part to the nature of Allen's compositions which demand a great deal of fussy harmonic underpinning from the bassist. That said, the quartet ends the disc strongly with a restless destructured chaccone appropriately entitled In A World Of Their Own. Mike Allen's world is well worth a visit.- Andy Hurlbut, The Jazz ReportOne Step Closer • 1997 • Almus CD 002Tenormen Mike Allen and John Nugent know their bebop. Allen's One Step Closer and Nugent's West Of Flatbush evoke the magic of those old Blue Note discs, the eager anticipation as you dropped the needle on the wax, the smile on your face as the notes swarmed in the air. That joy is present on much of these discs. This is not the powpowpow up'nadam fastfasterfastest Be-bop. This is more modal, more introspective, and most invigorating performances. Mike Allen's renderings of Milestones and Body And Soul both offer lilting behind the beat tenor, and the infectiousness of Down The Line is the type of refrain that will go through your head for days. Coda MagazineQuintet / Quartet • 1995 Je ne m'attendais pas a tant de Mike Allen, que j'ai longtemps consideré comme un étudiant modèle. Ce n'est plus le cas. Discrètement, le saxophoniste montréalais a transcendé ses apprentissages. Ce souffleur de ténor n'est pas I'homme des grandes tempetes, son phrasé s'avère néanmoins précis et allumé, faisant preuve d'une véritable recherche de timbre. Ouintet/Quartet en témoigne éloquemment. Primo, cinq pièces pour cinq jazzmen, dont le guitariste Benoit Charest, le batteur Dave Robbins, le contrebassiste Alec Walkington, le pianiste Tilden Webb. Jazz coltranien ( One Side of a Circle), blues jazzy (Blues on the Corner), ballade torride ( Then There Was You), et plus encore. Secundo, quatre pièces en quatuor, différentes de facture, plus contemporaines, tant sur le plan de l'instrumentation que des choix compositionnels. Allen dans Fensemble ? Plus de jus...- Alain Brunet - La Presse (Montréal)

Location Vancouver, British Colombia - Canada

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