{"id":2233,"date":"2013-08-28T23:19:47","date_gmt":"2013-08-28T23:19:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=2233"},"modified":"2013-09-05T16:50:59","modified_gmt":"2013-09-05T16:50:59","slug":"singer-jackie-allens-sophistication-and-soul-comes-home-to-milwaukee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=2233","title":{"rendered":"Singer Jackie Allen’s Sophistication and Soul comes home to Milwaukee"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Fb-Button\"\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>
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\"Jackie-2\"<\/p>\n

Few Milwaukee-born singers \u2013 Al Jarreau aside — have had as auspicious a career as Jackie Allen. But what is she? Ostensibly a jazz vocalist, Allen is sophistication and soul, a romancer and a restless stylistic roamer, as she\u2019ll demonstrate at The Jazz Gallery Center For The Arts, 926 E. Center St., at 7 p.m. Saturday, August 31. Allen\u2019s band includes bassist Hans Sturm, guitarist John Moulder, drummer Dane Richeson and pianist Johannes Wallmann, a new UW-Madison music faculty member, playing on the venue\u2019s new baby grand piano. She calls this her \u201chomecoming\u201d concert.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember sitting in at jam sessions and basically cutting my teeth at the original Jazz Gallery,\u201d Allen recalls of the multi-arts center\u2019s previous incarnation. \u201cThen I\u2019d go to hear blues guys because those places stayed open later.\u201d
\nIn the 1980s, she began a four-year gig at the Wyndham Hotel with the late, great Milwaukee pianist-organist Melvin Rhyne.<\/p>\n

She went on to tour internationally and has lived in Madison, Chicago and Indiana. She\u2019s also taught jazz voice at several universities and now resides in Lincoln, where Sturm, her husband, is an associate professor at The University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her last Milwaukee gig was nearly a decade ago at The Pabst Theater, opening for legendary drummer Roy Haynes\u2019 group .<\/p>\n

Allen will perform material from her forthcoming CD My Favorite Colors<\/em>, slated for February 2014 release, which characteristically cherry picks among genres. Jimi Hendrix\u2019s \u201cManic Depression\u201d is rewired with simmering Miles Davis currents. Allen rides the funky waves of Joe Zawinul\u2019s \u201cMercy, Mercy, Mercy!\u201d Gershwin\u2019s \u201cMy Man\u2019s Gone Now\u201d is spaciously reimagined with probing chord extensions, and a searing blues-rock crescendo from guitarist Monder. Allen delivers the standard \u201cBlame it on my Youth\u201d as spare, naked reverie. The failings of love sound like the slow wither of a dying flower.<\/p>\n

Non-jazz material has long provided many of her strongest personal statements. The mysterioso samba \u201cMoon & Sand\u201d betrayed her stylistic wanderlust on her 1994 debut album Never Let Me Go<\/em>. Songs by Paul Simon, James Taylor, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Sting deepened the complex strains of her 2003 CD The Men in My Life<\/em> (The rhythmic lofting of Jobim’s “Dindi” is brilliant without betraying the song’s inner melancholy) Her acclaimed 2006 Blue Note album Tangled<\/em> included Van Morrison\u2019s revelatory \u201cWhen Will I Ever Learn?\u201d and Donald Fagan\u2019s sassy \u201cDo Wrong Shoes.\u201d All Music Guide labels the CD \u201cadult alternative pop-rock.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"tangled\"<\/p>\n

Allen landed the Blue Note contract with that stylistic range and her limpid voice, which drew Norah Jones comparisons. Yes, Allen sings those melting notes that seem to fall backwards into her throat. But she sounded like that long before anyone ever heard of Jones. Allen possesses a former French horn player\u2019s musicality and warmth. Yet she\u2019s a more incisive, blues-informed singer than Jones, commingling womanly resilience and ageless-girl vulnerability.<\/p>\n

Despite serving on the jazz nominating committee for the Grammy Awards, Allen persists with material and interpretations that defy facile labels.
\n\u201cI choose songs that move me; so they will move other people,\u201d she says. \u201cAfter singing the Great American Songbook for years in Chicago, I got bored out of my mind. I had to find my own voice. So I\u2019ll do songs I grew up listening to, music of the \u201860s and \u201870s. Some have become new standards. I\u2019m not afraid to look at anything if it speaks to me, even a doing a classical piece.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her last recording, Starry Night,<\/em> was a night-themed album recorded live with the Muncie Symphony Orchestra, adorned with work from leading arrangers like John Clayton and Bill Cunliffe. It recalls\u00a0Joni Mitchell’s orchestral album\u00a0Both Sides Now, <\/em>and its\u00a0superb arrangements by Vince Mendoza, though there’s more swinging on Allen’s CD. She also has an album in the can, Moon on the Rise<\/em>, of originals by the extraordinarily gifted and accomplished Sturm.<\/p>\n

My partial hearing of Allen\u2019s upcoming My Favorite Colors<\/em> reveals an artist whose musical pallet will remain fresh, fluid and myriad.<\/p>\n

________________________________<\/p>\n

This is an expanded version of an article published in The Shepherd Express<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Few Milwaukee-born singers \u2013 Al Jarreau aside — have had as auspicious a career as Jackie Allen. But what is she? Ostensibly a jazz vocalist, Allen is sophistication and soul, a romancer and a restless stylistic roamer, as she\u2019ll demonstrate … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-www-kevernacular-com"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hJWE-A1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2233"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2248,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2233\/revisions\/2248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}