Ben Allison via giant steps through a matrix based in the phenomenon placing most of the 7.8 billion of us within 6 or fewer degrees — steps — of each other...
- Steps from Ben Allison:
I'LL TAKE YOU THERE! ▶
'mātriks / "source" / from "mater", Latin for "mother". We're real mothers for ya!
I'LL TAKE YOU THERE! ▶
- Steps forward by: The Matrix via ↴
Who I Am & Where I Live
- Name: Ben Allison
- City: New York City
- Country: United States
- Hometown: New Haven, Connecticut
Current News
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What's Up?
Called “one of today’s best young jazz musicians” by the Boston Globe and a “visionary composer, adventurous improviser, and strong organizational force on the New York City jazz scene” by JazzTimes, Ben has released 13 albums — Quiet Revolution (2018, Sonic Camera Records), Layers of the City (2017, Sonic Camera Records), The Stars Look Very Different Today (2013, Sonic Camera Records) and Action-Refraction (2011), Think Free (2009), Little Things Run the World (2008), Cowboy Justice (2006), Buzz (2004), Peace Pipe (2002), Riding the Nuclear Tiger (2001), Third Eye (1999), Medicine Wheel (1998) and Seven Arrows (1996) on Palmetto Records — all of which showcase Ben’s forward-thinking vision as a bassist, composer, arranger, producer, and mixing engineer, as well as his hands-on approach to his craft.
7 of Ben’s albums have reached #1 on the CMJ national jazz radio charts, often remaining in the top 10 for many weeks, garnering him 8 SESAC National Performance Awards. His album Action-Refraction was named one of the Best Albums of 2011 (of any genre) by NPR and Time Out New York. His albums have consistently been named as among the best of the year by publications such as Billboard, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Village Voice, Jazz Times, Jazz Journalists Association, Downbeat Critics Poll, All About Jazz, Coda (Canada), Jazzit (Italy) and Jazz Review (UK), among many others.
My Life & Work
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Bio:
In a career that spans over 30 years, bassist/composer Ben Allison has developed his own instantly identifiable sound, solidifying an international reputation as one of the leading voices of his generation. Known for his inspired arrangements, inventive grooves and hummable melodies, Ben draws from the jazz tradition and a range of influences from rock and folk to 20th century classical and world music, seamlessly blending them into a cinematic, cohesive whole.
With his groups The Ben Allison Band, Think Free, The Easy Way Trio, Peace Pipe, and Medicine Wheel, Ben has toured extensively throughout the world, winning fans and building new audiences with an adventurous yet accessible sound and a flair for the unexpected.
Recent performance highlights include Carnegie Hall (New York City), Teatro Manzoni (Milan, Italy), Thatro Roberto Cantoral (Mexico City, Mexico), Central Park’s SummerStage (New York, NY), Auditório Ibirapuera (Sao Paulo, Brazil), The Capitol Theater (Salt Lake City, NV), Walt Disney Concert Hall (Los Angeles, CA) and Queen Elizabeth Hall (London, England).
In 2005, 2008 and 2013, Ben was a featured composer, arranger and performer with Jazz Sinfonica, an 80-piece orchestra based in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The orchestra performed Ben’s compositions Little Things Run the World, Riding the Nuclear Tiger, Roll Credits, Green Al, and others from his various albums. Ben performed his Carnegie Hall debut as a leader in February 2012. A multi-part short documentary of Ben preparing for the concert was filmed.
Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Ben has performed and collaborated with an extremely diverse range of artists including oudist Ara Dinkjian, kora player Mamadou Diabate, saxophonists Lee Konitz and Joe Lovano, Cambodian chapei master Kong Nay, legendary performance artist Joey Arias, tap dancers Jimmy Slide and Gregory Hines and US Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky. He has appeared on over 50 albums by various artists and has written music for film, television and radio, including the theme for the National Public Radio (NPR) show On the Media (which boasts a listenership of over 2,000,000 people), the score for Two Days, a play written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Donald Margulies and the theme for The Conversation, a webcast talk show hosted by Pharrell Williams.
Contact Information
- Record Company: Palmetto Records
My Media & Markets
- ▶ Buy My Music (downloads/CDs/DVDs): http://benallison.com/store
- ▶ Buy My Vinyl: http://benallison.com/store?category=Vinyl
- ▶ Charts/Scores: http://benallison.com/store?category=sheet+music
- ▶ Twitter: benallisonmusic
- ▶ Instagram: benallisonmusic
- ▶ Website: http://benallison.com
- ▶ YouTube Music: http://music.youtube.com/channel/UCzs2iF0hPAEGvfgrczCg1ug
- ▶ Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/6g7UhiK9tZ44QOmyzwR8bs
- ▶ Spotify 2: http://open.spotify.com/album/3qwi3tppLsUnTYXFZajqMb
- ▶ Spotify 3: http://open.spotify.com/album/2Psg7K8i7zJSGWc7dybsll
- ▶ Spotify 4: http://open.spotify.com/album/5Fl4Y98GTYC4mQzBFwnc1h
- ▶ Spotify 5: http://open.spotify.com/album/7hkmIglvF1qFgTAGTubbJN
- ▶ Spotify 6: http://open.spotify.com/album/4cDfFlSNqQtE3l40eCLaZ2
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Quotes, Notes & Etc.
Over the past two decades, Ben has solidified his reputation as a strong voice for artist empowerment and musician’s rights. In 2001 he served as an advisor to the Doris Duke Foundation, helping to establish Chamber Music America’s New Works – Creation and Presentation program. He has served as a panelist and featured speaker at conferences led by the International Association of Jazz Educators, Chamber Music America, the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, JazzTimes, the Doris Duke Foundation, the NY State Arts Presenters, the JazzConnect conference, and the Jazz Composers Collective.
Ben served two terms as President of the Board of the New York chapter of the Recording Academy, and currently chairs the Advocacy Committee. He has also served two terms as Vice President and acted as an alternate National Trustee. He has met with state and federal Senators and Representatives on subjects ranging from intellectual property rights, to technology and arts funding. In June 2012, Ben testified before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce in support of performing rights. His testimony was reported on by the BBC, Billboard, Bloomberg and the New York Times among many other national and international news outlets. In 2015, Ben organized and moderated the first ever Grammy Town Hall in NYC, which featured an expert panel and keynote address by legendary producer Tony Visconti. He has appeared on radio programs produced by WBGO and WNYC where he has discussed issues relating to music piracy and intellectual property rights and is an active member of the NY state coalition NY is Music.
At the age of twenty-five, Ben formed the Jazz Composers Collective — a musician-run, non-profit organization based in New York City that was dedicated to constructing an environment where artists could exercise their ideals of creating and risking through the development and exploration of new music. As the Artistic Director and a Composer-in-Residence of the Collective, Ben produced or co-produced over 100 concerts and special events, including the Collective’s annual concert series (which ran for eleven seasons), national and international tours by Collective artists, an on-going Collective residency at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA, NYC), and, in partnership with the United States Embassy, a series of concerts and educational activities in Sao Paulo and Campinas, Brazil. From 2001-2005 Ben organized an annual “Jazz Composers Collective Festival” at the Jazz Standard — which drew international attention as “..a mainstay of New York City’s cultural life” (New Yorker Magazine).
As an author, Ben has contributed music-related articles to magazines such as Downbeat, JazzTimes, Bass Player, Premiere Guitar, Bass World, Double Bassist and thetalkhouse.com. He co-wrote (with pianist Frank Kimbrough) the liner notes for the CD Herbie Nichols: The Complete Blue Note Recordings.
Clips (more may be added)
The world's artistry via giant steps through a matrix based in the phenomenon placing most of the 7.8 billion of us within 6 or fewer degrees — steps — of each other ...
... a project conceived and built in the fertile, fecund and atavistic ground zero of Bahia, Brazil initially for the discoverability of this singular region's dispossessed genius.
All explained in the window immediately below. Followed — beneath this window — by scores of magnificent artists, each leading to myriads more artists/categories. Inside this window also may be found our Brazilian record store radio, named by British journal The Guardian as one of 10 of the Best Radio Stations Around the World!
IF YOU CAN'T STAND THE HEAT
Brazil is not a European nation. It's not a North American nation. It's not an East Asian nation. It straddles -- jungle and desert and dense urban centers -- both the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn. It absorbed over ten times the number of African slaves taken to the United States of America, and much of its aboriginal population was absorbed into the general population-at-large. Its people have lived under oligarchy, plutocracy, dictatorships and massive corruption, with elements of these still strongly entrenched today.
But!
Brazil has buzz...not the shallow buzz of a fashionable moment...but the deep buzz of a population which in spite of -- or perhaps because of -- the tough slog through life they've been allotted by humanity's dregs-in-fine-linen, have chosen not to simply pull themselves along but to lift their voices in song and their bodies in dance...to eat well and converse well and much and to wring the joy out of the day-to-day happenings and small pleasures of life which are so often set aside or ignored in the European, North American, and East Asian nations.
For this Brazil has a genius perhaps unparalleled in all other countries and societies, a genius which thrives alongside peeling paint and holes in the streets and roads, under bad organization by the powers-that-be, both civil and governmental, under a constant rain of societal indignities...
Which is all to say that if you don't know Brazil and you're expecting any semblance of order, progress and light, you will certainly find the light! And the buzz of a people who for generations have responded to privation at many different levels by somehow rising above it all.
Raimundo Sodré, in a conversation ranging from New Orleans to Harlem and the South Side of Chicago ... through Appalachia and Irish villages and Russian shtetls and the unofficial symbol of Brazil's Bahian-born national music (the pandeiro) almost certainly having arrived in Brazil in the hands of Sephardic Jews (including conversos) fleeing the Inquisition, once remarked: "Where there's misery, there's music!"
A pandeirista on the roof. And it's not just music. And it's not just Brazil.
