[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 11]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 15439]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          RECOGNIZING THE CONTRIBUTIONS TO JAZZ OF GERI ALLEN

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JOHN CONYERS, JR.

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 18, 2014

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, jazz artist Geri Allen will be honored this 
year by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF) at the Jazz 
Forum and Concert during the 44th Annual Legislative Conference (ALC). 
Ms. Allen is an internationally renowned pianist, composer, and 
educator, who will also be performing at the Walter E. Washington 
Convention Center, in Washington, D.C. Ms. Allen will receive the 2014 
CBCF ALC Jazz Legacy Award for her contributions to jazz and world 
culture.
  Geri Allen was born on June 12, 1957 in Pontiac, Michigan, but she 
was raised in Detroit, where she attended Detroit public schools. Her 
early music education came at Cass Technical High School in Detroit, 
and through the Jazz Development Workshop, where she was taught by 
Marcus Belgrave.
  She then came to Washington, D.C., where she received a degree from 
Howard University in Jazz Studies in 1979. At Howard, she studied under 
composers Thomas Kerr, pianists Raymond Jackson, John Malichi, Fred 
Irby, Arthur Dawkins, and Komla Amoaku. She then left D.C. for New York 
City, where she learned from bop pianist Kenny Barron. She then moved 
on to study ethnomusicology at the University of Pittsburgh, earning 
her masters there. She returned to New York, where she began touring 
with Mary Wilson and the Supremes in 1982. She later helped charter the 
Black Rock Coalition and the Brooklyn M-Base movement. She would 
collaborate on several works with a fellow charter member of that 
group, Steve Coleman.
  Her own albums have displayed a depth of range and skill. Her first 
album, The Printmakers, displays what many have called an avant-garde 
talent. In 1995, her album Twenty-One, won the Soul Train's Lady of 
Soul Award for album of the year. In 2008, Ms. Allen won a Guggenheim 
Fellowship in Composition, which allowed her to release her composition 
Refractions: Flying Toward the Sound, which celebrates the work of 
Cecil Taylor, McCoy Tyner, and Herbie Hancock. She is the youngest 
person and the only woman to receive the Danish JAZZPAR award.
  In addition to the massive number of awards she has received, which 
are simply too numerous to mention here, Ms. Allen has also been a 
remarkable mentor to younger jazz musicians. One example of such 
efforts is found in the powerful For the Healing of the Nations, a 
tribute to the survivors of 9/11, which was performed with Howard 
University's Afro-Blue Jazz Choir. In addition to her work with her 
alma mater, she has been a professional educator for many years, having 
taught jazz at the University of Michigan, and presently at the 
University of Pittsburgh.
  Despite this list of accomplishments, she has yet to slow down and 
take a break. She recently released a recording celebrating our 
collective home town: Grand River Crossings: Motown & Motor City 
Inspirations. On May 10, 2014, she received an Honorary Doctorate of 
Music from the Berklee College of Music.
  Geri Allen is a living national jazz treasure, and I encourage my 
colleagues to learn more about her tremendous contributions to the most 
American of art forms.

                          ____________________