Courtesy of Karrin Allyson






Concord Jazz

A FIRESIDE CHAT WITH KARRIN ALLYSON


I got a promo from the Jazz Alliance rep when I was doing buying for Tower. It was a CD called Collage from a singer named Karrin Allyson. It must have sat on my desk for two months before I got around to listening to it. A surprising record from an impressive voice, Collage was an omen of more to come and Ms. Allyson has proved me right time and time again. With In Blue hitting the store and airwaves near you, I sat down with Karrin to speak about her career, singing, and her new release, as always, unedited and in her own words.


FRED JUNG: Let's start from the beginning.

KARRIN ALLYSON: My first instrument was piano. I studied piano since I was about six years old. My mom started my sisters off and I on piano. I liked to sing as a kid, but I didn't do it very seriously until later. I guess I played piano all through high school and then I ended up majoring in it in college. That was at Omaha, Nebraska. But I also moved to California for a while when my folk split up and I got involved, I moved to the Bay Area, which is where I am calling you from, just a few days rest in between some things. I got involved in some musical theater in senior high school and was kind of dabbling with writing too and then I really liked singer/songwriter songs and I'd get sheet music for that and just sing it for pleasure. Stuff like Carly Simon, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, things like that and then when I went to college and when I was studying piano more seriously, I met up with people who were involved in jazz and one of them gave me a tape. I think it was a tape of Nancy Wilson and Cannonball Adderley. I fell in love with the songs and the style opened itself up to me. I got to know these guys and I actually joined the jazz band, the big band as a pianist and then I joined a jazz combo as a singer. I was involved in other kinds of bands too for professional purposes, variety bands, wedding bands. I was also doing a lot of solo vocal/piano stuff in restaurants too at that time. It kind of all came together pretty quickly.


FJ: You paid your dues.

KARRIN ALLYSON: I'm still paying them (laughing). Yeah, I would say that that's a fair statement. Lately, it is traveling and the things that go along with traveling and being a singer, which is fatigue. But I'm a pretty strong and healthy person. It is very important for me to exercise right and drink a lot of water and have a life other than just being in the clubs or concert halls. I love to be outdoors. I'm going to try and do that later today just to kind of get my head clear and get back to some common ground. That is just the physical part of it. As far as the other difficult parts, the business is a hard one. I booked myself all these years up until now. I've just signed with William Morris Agency and a new management company, which will be the first time that I have really had official management and an agency working for me. When I signed with Concord, I think a lot of people, as you sort of alluded to, Fred, first maybe they might get a manager and then an agent and then a record company, but it was just the opposite for me. I've had a record company since I made my first album myself in Kansas City in 1990 or '91. And then the record company discovered that and then I signed with them. I've just been working hard ever since.


FJ: So you were signed to Concord when Carl Jefferson was still alive.

KARRIN ALLYSON: Yes, I feel very lucky. I know they have gone through some changes and people might question why the pop end of it is getting in there, but I think they see it as a very healthy mixture of things and I feel lucky to still be with them. I feel like I can bring, as young as I am, some longevity and integrity to the label as well in the jazz sense. It's a good relationship. It is not very distracting unless I feel like they are not getting back to me when they should or vice versa. We all just get busy. I don't concentrate on too much else going on around me. I have to really quite focus.


FJ: Unlike other instruments, the human voice is inherently unique, much like a fingerprint.

KARRIN ALLYSON: I know when I first started, I fell in love with Nancy Wilson's style and then came everyone else that is logical, of course, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae. I grew into Betty Carter and finally grew into Billie Holiday a little and then, lots of male vocalists and instrumentalists too. But that is the one thing that drew me to it, is that you can do different stuff with the same tune that everyone else has sung before. So yeah, having your own voice is an important thing, but I think just by working a lot, that has happened and hopefully that has happened with me. I'm still developing it and that's the great thing about it. It is never ending. Especially the singer because your voice is going to change as you get older and as you have more experience. Instrumentalists, this happens too of course, but you're not going to hear it as evidently because I'm speaking to you with everything I do every day and what I do at night too (laughing).


FJ: You initially came to my attention with Collage.

KARRIN ALLYSON: Yeah, I liked the variety of tunes that were on there. There is still things in all the CDs that we have done where the repertoire is very much within our live performances because people keep asking for it and want to hear it and I still enjoy playing it. It's developed in different ways too in our live gigs. I love some of those songs on there and it was meant to be, obviously, a collage of material. Before Paris to Rio, which is a concept album and Ballads: Remembering John Coltrane was obviously a concept album, and In Blue is as well. For that the concept was I'm learning music. I'm learning tunes and I'm a developing artist and I'm doing some of my favorite songs and there is really no particular order. So many or all were a collage, but especially Collage, it had more of a pop, it did have some pop tunes on it as you might recall like Billy Joel, a Bonnie Raitt tune, a Brazilian tunes, some standards and a couple ballads. So it was a variety. I look back on it pretty fondly.


FJ: How did you research the Coltrane album?

KARRIN ALLYSON: I really learned a lot about singing ballads from doing that album. I realized that after the fact. I think that ballads have a certain, each one has their own style. In this album, even though they're mostly all ballads, except for all or nothing and well, they're all ballads really. Each one has a different personality. Each one has a different intensity level. When I'm performing live, I realize that these tunes definitely have a different intensity level. I don't want this to necessarily be a walk through the park, singing about love. I wanted to really grab all of us around us, including the players and myself and of course the audience as having a message to say about some spirituality. It doesn't have to be about love. It can be about loss, all kinds of aspects of love.


FJ: Let's touch on your latest, In Blue, which you referred to as a concept album.

KARRIN ALLYSON: I use that term because everyone is using that term. They say I finally got around to making some concept albums. Well, the concept I had before was making music and I never thought there was a need, I didn't feel the need to come up with a concept. I think it is easy for people to, it is easier for people to have something to grab onto like she sounds like so and so or he sounds like so and so. Well, this is a blues related album so you can imagine what it is going to be. A blues related album is just that. I usually have about three or four ideas for certain projects in my mind. This blues album could have happened before From Paris to Rio. It could have happened right after Daydream. It just happened to be the time for this now. Blue has always been in our repertoire and I've loved them forever, as long as I've discovered them and heard them. I thought it might be nice to do one that was solely related to the blues.


FJ: How is your approach different from singing the blues as opposed to singing a ballad?

KARRIN ALLYSON: It depends on if it's a ballad blues (laughing). For example, "How Long Has This Been Going On?" is a standard of course, but it has a blues tinged line in it and so my approach to that is like a ballad would be. I do think of it as sort of a blues ballad. Yeah, every tune you sing has a different approach on it and blues is so multi-faceted, especially with the lyrical content. It is sort of an attitude.


FJ: Any favorites?

KARRIN ALLYSON: "Moanin'," I've enjoyed doing and that seems to be something that people want to hear a lot too. Mose Allison's tune and I like the Oscar Brown Jr. stuff too.


FJ: What is the configuration of your road band?

KARRIN ALLYSON: Right now, I just came away from Yoshi's and Jazz Alley in Seattle and I had my, well, I always have my guitarist, Danny Embrey, with me. We usually have a piano trio around that. Sometimes I just have a guitar trio, which is Danny, bass, and drums and myself. I may sit down at the piano and play two or three or four a set. When I have a pianist with me, I also sit down and play too depending on time. Bruce Barth from New York City joined us in Seattle. Steve Wilson was on both of those gigs, the saxophonist. The bassist I used was a wonderful bassist from LA, Tom Warrington. We use him quite often. That's kind of a big band for me. That's a sextet and I usually travel with a quintet or a quartet.


FJ: How long have you been calling New York home?

KARRIN ALLYSON: I have for two and a half years. Most of my players still come from Kansas City, but I am reaching out and playing with other folks as well. I met my significant other, Bill McGlaughlin, who was a Kansas City symphony conductor at the time and radio host. I met my musical family in Kansas City. I'm hardly in New York right now. When I am there, I don't find myself going out every night. That's for sure. I am rejuvenating and getting my house back together so to speak. I get back to New York and think that I am so glad I moved here.


FJ: And the future?

KARRIN ALLYSON: Let me look at my calendar. We just got back from Japan too. We were in London before that. We've been to LA for a week and Kansas City. We're going to Carmel on Friday and the Bay Area, another LA club for a night. We're going to Bermuda and some East Coast dates coming up in October in New York and in Philadelphia and Massachusetts. We're going back to Japan in December and back to Los Angeles for a week at Catalina's.


FJ: Sounds like perpetual jet lag.

KARRIN ALLYSON: You're usually kind of fighting that (laughing). I can bounce back pretty quickly (laughing).


FJ: Hailing from the blue collar Mid-West, you've done it in blue collar fashion.

KARRIN ALLYSON: That's true, Fred. Yes, I have.

Fred Jung is the Editor-In-Chief and is the king of beer. Comments? Email Him