Geri Allen, remembered by George Lewis

I wrote a short piece about Geri Allen's passing, which will run in City Paper this week. Not knowing that I would only have a little bit of space to reflect on the pianist's death last week, I reached out to composer/trombonist/professor at Columbia University George Lewis, who Allen brought to town last year for a few performances. 

There have been many tributes to Allen popping up in publications and on Facebook, all of which have captured the depth and spirit of her work. Lewis adds to that, so I thought it appropriate to reprint his words from the email he sent me:

"...We just lost one of the leading musicians of our time. Playing with Geri was a dream, and I was privileged to live that dream more than once. As you know, we worked on software interactivity performances (at least three), and she understood interactivity at a philosophically deep level because she could read minds while she played.

"Around the time of our telematic collaboration at Pitt, we were talking animatedly about all the new things she was doing and planning. She was taking the Jazz Studies program at Pitt in directions that were unimaginably great, and she could do this because of her extremely open mind and her ability to understand and support diverse viewpoints, which was also why she was able to perform with the widest range of creative people. She was a creative musician of the very highest order, and our loss is incalculable."

George also included this link to performance with Allen from 2012. This is another Interactive Trio one that is a little longer.

RIP, Geri.