Allen was born in Pontiac, Michigan, on June 12, 1957, and grew up in Detroit.[2] "Her father, Mount Allen Jr, was a school principal, her mother, Barbara, a government administrator in the defence industry."[3] Allen was educated in Detroit Public Schools.[4] She started playing the piano at the age of seven, and settled on becoming a jazz pianist in her early teens.[3]
Allen graduated from Howard University's jazz studies program in 1979.[5] She then continued her studies: with pianist Kenny Barron in New York;[3] and at the University of Pittsburgh, where she completed a master's degree in ethnomusicology in 1982.[5] After this, she returned to New York.[3]
Later life and career
Allen with Trio 3 in 2011
Allen became involved in the M-Base collective in New York.[3] Her recording debut as a leader was in 1984, resulting in The Printmakers.[2] This trio album, with bassist Anthony Cox and drummer Andrew Cyrille, also featured some of Allen's compositions.[2]
In 2006, Allen composed "For the Healing of the Nations", a suite written in tribute to the victims and survivors of the September 11 attacks.[3] She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008.[3]
Allen was a longtime resident of Montclair, New Jersey.[6] For 10 years she taught jazz and improvisational studies at the University of Michigan, and she became director of the jazz studies program at the University of Pittsburgh in 2013.[2]
Allen died on June 27, 2017, two weeks after her 60th birthday, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, after suffering from cancer.[7]
Trio, with Jaribu Shahid (bass), Tani Tabbal (drums), plus Sadiq Bey (congas, percussion), Eli Fountain (percussion) as guests, and Clarice Taylor Bell (vocals) on one track
Some tracks solo piano/synthesizer; some duos with Ornette Coleman (alto sax), Wallace Roney (trumpet) and Cyro Baptista (percussion); some trio tracks, with Roney (trumpet) and Baptista (percussion)
With Henrik Bolberg Pedersen (trumpet, flugelhorn), Johnny Coles (flugelhorn), Kjeld Ipsen (trombone), Axel Windfeld (tuba), Michael Hove (alto sax, flute, clarinet), Uffe Markussen (tenor sax, soprano sax, bass clarinet), Palle Danielsson (bass), Lenny White (drums)
Trio, with Ron Carter (bass), Jimmy Cobb (drums); some tracks solo piano; some tracks with Wallace Roney (trumpet), Donald Walden (tenor sax), Carmen Lundy, George Shirley and The Atlanta Jazz Chorus (vocals) added in various combinations
^Staudter, Thomas. "Making Jazz and Family, Home and the Road Work Together", The New York Times, September 9, 2001. Accessed September 18, 2017. "Her luggage already packed for a late afternoon flight to San Francisco, Geri Allen, a jazz pianist, still had several precious hours remaining before her departure out of Newark, so she was filling the morning in the company of three children, ages 3 to 11. Ms. Allen's husband, Wallace Roney, a trumpeter, had returned home after midnight from an evening rehearsal at Carnegie Hall, and to respect his need to sleep, mother and children romped in the yard until growling stomachs sent them back inside to the breakfast table.... Ms. Allen and Mr. Roney have lived in their three-story frame house in Montclair, a short trip from Manhattan, since 1991." Geri Allen and Wallace Roney were divorced in 2008.
