About Ben Allison

Listen to all of Ben Allison's CDs at http://BenAllison.com/music Ben Allison is a bassist/composer from New York City. Ben leads the groups The Ben Allison Band, Man Size Safe, Peace Pipe, and Medicine Wheel and composes and performs instrumental music that utilizes a lot of improvisation and incorporates a wide range of musical influences - including rock, folk, jazz, R&B, Malian Griot music, Armenian folk themes, 20th century serialism, and Italian film scores. He is known for his driving, rhythmic approach to the bass and lyrical, cinematic compositions. Ben has released eleven albums - The Stars Look Very Different Today (2013, Sonic Camera Records), and Action-Refraction (2011), Think Free (2009), Little Things Run the World (2008), Cowboy Justice (2006), Buzz (2004), Peace Pipe (2002), Riding the Nuclear Tiger (2001), Third Eye (1999), and Medicine Wheel (1998), Seven Arrows (1996) on Palmetto Records. Ben has received 7 SESAC Performance Awards for national radio airplay and the BIrd Award for artistic excellence (2005, Netherlands). In June, 2012 Ben testified before the US Congress on the subject of musician's performing rights. At the age of twenty-five, he formed the Jazz Composers Collective - a musician-run, non-profit organization based in New York City that is dedicated to constructing an environment where artists can exercise their ideals of creating and risking through the development and exploration of new music. As the Artistic Director and a Composer-in-Residence of the Jazz Composers Collective, Ben has produced or co-produced over 100 concerts and special events, including the Collective's annual concert series (which ran for eleven seasons), national and international tours by Collective artists, an on-going Collective residency at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA, NYC), and an annual "Jazz Composers Collective Festival" at the Jazz Standard - which has drawn international attention as a mainstay of New York City's musical life. Born in 1966 in New Haven, Connecticut, Ben has performed with musicians ranging from oudist Ara Dinkjian to saxophonist Lee Konitz to legendary performance artist Joey Arias. He has appeared on over 40 albums by various artists and has written music for film, national television and radio, including the theme for the National Public Radio (NPR) show On the Media, the score for Two Days, a play written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Donald Margulies, and the score for Play Name, by indie film director David Snyder. He was a featured artist with the Jazz Sinfonica Orchestra of Sao Paulo in 2005, 2008 and 2013.