Karrin Allyson

Basking in the spotlight has never been the way of jazz instrumentalists. They know how much they owe the band. But for jazz vocalists, the opposite tends to be true. Female singers in particular tend to be marketed as center-stage divas more than musicians. And all too often, sex appeal is left to peddle the wares.

Not so with Midwesterner Karrin Allyson. Before her show at Musashino Swing Hall May 30, she laughed that her recent move, after several critically acclaimed releases during the 90s, from her home base in Kansas City to New York was "right into the belly of the beast."This kind of unassuming charm and disarming directness also shows itself in her singing. The billing read, importantly, "Karrin Allyson Quintet."

"I don't listen to other singers so much," confessed Allyson. "I'm much more into instrumentalists." Her attention to instrumentalists was easy to hear last Thursday, not just in her succinct piano playing, not just in her choice of crack band members, and not just on her brave choice of difficult vocal material, but more in the way she keeps her husky voice deep inside the band's sound, rather than out in front of it.

Allyson takes on the traditional mantle of singer almost reluctantly. "It's hard for a singer. You can't walk down the street to a club and just sit in as part of the band. You're out front all the time!" she said. While this might sound like crocodile tears after her Grammy nomination for best jazz vocal recording for last year's, "Ballads: Remembering John Coltrane," she takes her role as equal participant seriously. While she was clearly in charge on stage, she drew her energy as much from their playing as from inside herself.

The result last Thursday evening was two tight, cohesive sets. The intimate give-and-take of the band set off her understated style and gritty-velvet phrasing superbly. "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home to" was held to a tight swing by drummer Joe LaBarbera, famed as a key dynamic force in Bill Evans' final trio. Allyson took many of her cues from the crisp, right-to-the-point guitar rhythms of longtime associate, Danny Embrey. But more than that, all of the band members signaled their approval of her by smiling and nodding through both sets. She thanked the band in turn after nearly song.

In the first set, Allyson spiced up the choice of standards with samba rhythms while singing her Portuguese lyrics with warm sensuality. Her chanson-like swirls for the lovely "Sous le Ciel de Paris," sung in French, sounded as natural as the thumping, down-home blues of "Gee Baby."

But it was the material from her recent "Ballads" that proved the most mesmerizing of the evening. Based on Coltrane's popular 1961 recording of ballads, Allyson's release stays true to the inner core of Coltrane's early style. "I didn't want to just do a note-by-note tribute, but to capture the feeling of the album," said Allyson. " We even got approval to include John Coltrane's name on the cover from Alice Coltrane [his widow], which was very nice."

The tunes from this recording brought out the band's full concentration. Allyson performed "Too Young to Go Steady" with stately grace. The slow pace held tight by LaBarbera allowed her to stretch delicate tones over several beats, raising or intensifying the notes with nuance and care. On "All or Nothing at All," her phrasing of the lyrics broke out into full scatting at times, as if the words were insufficient to carry all she wanted to express.

Even though the second set's "Nancy with the Laughing Face" and "I Got the World on a String"relied more on Frank Sinatra than on Coltrane, "Naima," one of the most beautiful ballads ever written, more than made up for it. Moving from center stage to piano, Allyson set up an incessant pedal point in the bass over which the chords, rhythms, and wordless vocals pulsed and flowed. Even Allyson was a little shaken by the intensity, it seemed, and had to ask the crowd what they wanted for the next number. The crowd's request of "Everytime We Say Goodbye" returned the vibe to a more upbeat swinging melody to hum on the way home.

What's in the future for Allyson? "I have such a busy tour schedule, you'll have to check my website, but I'm going to do a blues CD. But I'd also like to do another tribute. Coltrane has many more ballads left, unless somebody else gets to them first." Then stopping to laugh, she added, "They wouldn't dare!" Indeed they wouldn't, as Allyson seems to have marked that territory for herself.

(Originally published in The Japan Times, June 2002)