Geri Allen’s new album, Flying Toward the Sound (Motema), isn’t officially released until Tuesday, March 9, but you can get a preview for free (with a suggested $5 museum admission) on Monday. Better yet, it’s a live performance accompanied by a short film by the pioneering Carrie Mae Weems.
The music, underwritten by a 2008-2009 Guggenheim Fellowship is a “solo piano excursion” that salutes three of Allen’s piano inspirations and influences: Cecil Taylor, McCoy Tyner and Herbie Hancock. But rather than outright references to the three, it’s a work that shows how they’ve been absorbed into Allen’s own piano language in a work that brings out her lush, impressionistic side.
For a look at what the collaboration between Allen, currently a U-M prof, and Weems is about, check out this video about the making of the project.
The performance takes place at 8 p.m. Monday in the apse of the University of Michigan Museum of Art, 525 South State Street, Ann Arbor; 734-764-0395; umma.umich.edu.
This article appears in Mar 3-9, 2010.
