The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to any number of creative improvisations, each manifesting from the necessity of having to “quarantine in place.” Tenor saxophonist Harry Allen met the pandemic head-on by cutting a European tour short in March 2020, and returning to New York City. By way of avoiding cabin fever early in the lockdown, Allen hunkered in his living room with some new recording equipment and computer software, creating a virtual jazz recital featuring several different formats from solo saxophone to big band.
Allen had previously been planning a solo saxophone recording to be produced at his home before the pandemic kicked in and had already begun assembling the necessary equipment. The pandemic pushed the project to fruition, recording, The Bloody Happy Song (GAC Records, 2020). As such, Allen was in charge of the whole deal: performing, arranging, producing, engineering, and mastering the final product.
Extrapolating this method, Allen enlisted the Australian guitarist Dave Blenkhorn with whom he had been touring in Europe on the eve of the pandemic, to make a trans-Atlantic recording: Allen in New York City and Blenkhorn in Bordeaux, France. This resulted in Under A Blanket Of Blue (GAC Records, 2020).
A swinging tenor saxophonist, Harry Allen is a highly-regarded performer whose musical inspiration and interpretive approach came from the giants and innovators of mainstream saxophone, including Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Stan Getz, Scott Hamilton and Lester Young. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Allen has generally eschewed the modern, avant-garde and impressionist schools of jazz of John Coltrane, Archie Shepp and Ornette Coleman.
Early Experiences
Allen’s first instrument was the accordion; he and his accordion-playing sister gigged with dad on drums. But, explains Allen, “Long before I started playing accordion, I knew I wanted to play saxophone.” Following an unhappy attempt at clarinet, he finally landed where he was meant to be. He played in a college band at Rutgers University, then landed his first professional gig when Bucky Pizzarelli hired him to replace Zoot Sims at a New Jersey gig. “Dizzy Gillespie walked in,” Allen recalls. “I was so scared, I was shaking like a leaf.”
While there, he got his first gig with the help of master bass player Major Holley, replacing Zoot Sims in a studio recording with John Bunch, George Masso, Bucky Pizzarelli, and Ruby Braff. Holley also led Allen to Oliver Jackson, whom Allen subsequently accompanied on several tours to Europe. A 1986 session with Kenny Barron was Allen’s first recording date. After that, Allen made his debut as a leader in 1988.
Harry is featured on many of John Pizzarelli’s recordings including the soundtrack and an on-screen cameo in the feature film The Out of Towners starring Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn. He has also done a series of commercials for ESPN starring Robert Goulet. It was John who introduced him to Japanese producer Ikuyoshi Hirakawa. Allen began recording albums exclusively for the Japanese market, cutting some 60 titles for BMG Japan and another dozen for Hirakawa’s own label, averaging two per year for most of the past two decades. His “My Reverie” recording on Spotify has had over 3.5 million “hits.”
Recorded 70 CDs
Harry Allen has recorded over 70 CDs as a leader and many more as a sideman. Three of Harry’s CDs have won Gold Disc Awards from Japan’s Swing Journal Magazine, and his CD Tenors Anyone? Won both the Gold Disc Award and the New Star Award. His recordings have made the Top 10 list for favorite new releases in Swing Journal Magazine’s reader’s poll and Jazz Journal International’s critic’s poll for 1997, and Eu Nao Quero Dancar (I Won’t Dance), the third Gold Disc Award winner, was voted second for album of the year for 1998 by Swing Journal Magazine’s reader’s poll.
Harry Allen is an old schooler. Although he occasionally acquiesces relatively contemporary material, he’s clearly more comfortable around music written before his 1966 birth. And he’s a purist of sorts: “The important thing to me when I’m recording any song is to not lose the intention of the song,” he says. “With a few exceptions, I won’t record a song unless I’ve looked at the sheet music. If you get the actual sheet music, then you have what the composer either wrote or hired an arranger to write; it’s the actual sanction. I’ll change some things around, but I try not to lose the overall picture.”
For the most part, Allen’s thoughtful, straightforward approach to the songs favors gradations in tone instead of flashy detours or ornate embellishment. His penchant for taking a somewhat different course on the in and out heads contribute to the record’s extemporaneous character. He executes refined variations of the melodies and makes each phrase sound like a distinct entity that merits scrutiny. Indicative of a clear-sighted player with a lyrical streak, Allen’s improvisations are devoid of the shock and awe moments that have become commonplace in contemporary jazz. In his domain, temperance is truly a virtue. Meticulously constructed narratives betray no signs of inessential detail, inflated climaxes, and gratuitous emotion.
Studio Recording
When he does go into a studio, that same respect for authenticity guides him. The gimmickry that allows virtually anyone today to create a recording by patching and tweaking electronically is not his style. “When you listen to Ellington,” he says, “even when the horns are playing, you can hear every note of the rhythm section. Duke is comping very sparsely for the most part and leaves a lot of space. I do most of my records by putting everyone in a good room and letting them play, without headphones.
“If there’s one bad note or a squeak, I might use something to fix it, but most of the records I’ve done lately, we’re all in the same room with a very minimum amount of baffles. A lot of studios nowadays are acoustically dead, and then they add in the room sound electronically. That is stupid. In an acoustically dead room, you feel like you can’t get a good sound. That’s not music.”
His technique is as close to perfect as a swing tenor saxophone can get. Clear and clean, minimal and traditional, Allen plays mellow in the higher register, never forcing or splitting notes. He has an intensity of talent recognized and respected by a list of jazz men from a place up above the top shelf. He stands still, concentrating, and plays with his eyes closed.
Eye Problems
Of late, he has had to wear dark glasses when performing because he has been dealing with a rare eye condition, blepoharospasms—uncontrollable twitches or spasms that force the eyelids to close. While his eyesight is good, the condition is not curable, but is treatable and is improving.
Allen has written some, most of which are reminiscent of the Great American Songbook. “The jazz industry as a whole has too low of a standard for what’s good with originals,” he says. “The great songwriters wrote great songs; there’s a whole slew. But not everybody writes great songs and as Duke Ellington said, ‘There’s only two kinds of music: good and bad.’ I write hundreds of songs, and I throw most of them in the trash. Every now and then, I’ll write one that I think is good, and I’ll record it.”
The Harry Allen – Joe Cohn Quartet won the New York Nightlife Award for Outstanding Jazz Combo Performance of 2006 and was nominated for Best Jazz Combo by the Jazz Journalists Association for the same year. Harry also won the 2010 New York Nightlife Award for Best Jazz Solo. In 2020, Harry Allen was inducted into the Jazz Monsters Hall of Fame at Soka University of America, a liberal arts college in Aliso Viejo, California that cultivates global citizens and critical thinking to provide leadership in a rapidly-changing world.
Allen was a top-three finalist for France’s Acadamie du Jazz’s Prix du Jazz Classique for his CD, Under a Blanket of Blue, with guitarist Dave Blenkhorn. This year, he was inducted into the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame. Coming up, he will be honored as the Jazz Legend of 2025 at the San Diego Jazz Party in Del Mar, California (February 21-23, 2025).
Harry Allen’s concluding thoughts: “The music business today isn’t back to where it was before the pandemic, but it’s getting there slowly. Everything considered, I’m just so grateful to be able to play music.”
