Hailing from Detroit, Geri Allen is one of the most important jazz pianists in recent history with contemporaries such as Mulgrew Miller. She has influenced today’s modern jazz pianists and has played with countless other jazz legends such as Jack DeJohnette, Dave Holland, Jimmy Cob, Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Paul Motian, and Kenny Garrett, as well as many other musicians. The late Geri Allen has created a great legacy not only as a spectacular musician but also as a band leader, composer, educator, one of the producers of Erroll Garner’s The Complete Concert by the Sea, received the Guggenheim Fellowship Award in 2008 and musical director of the Mary Lou Williams Collective.

Written by Joseph Nguyen.