Rail 25 March 2020

A versatile acoustic bassist with an adventurous spirit, Ben Allison has often excelled in avant-garde settings but has proven himself to be equally capable of playing hard bop. The East Coast native was only nine when he began studying music, and he was 22 when, in 1989, he graduated from New York University with a B.A. in jazz performance. In 1992, Allison founded the Jazz Composers Collective, a musician-run, nonprofit organization that encouraged artists to take risks and didn't shy away from the avant-garde when presenting many concerts in New York. It was in 1994 that the Collective launched the Herbie Nichols Project, which Allison co-directed with pianist Frank Kimbrough; it used concerts and CDs (including Love Is Proximity on Soul Note) to celebrate the music of the great but underexposed bebop pianist Herbie Nichols.