Ben Allison 'Little Things Run The World' album

After bassist Ben Allison read in the Washington Post about the "man-size safe" kept in Vice President Dick Cheney's office and that its contents were unknown to all but Cheney himself, he had an immediate reaction. He explains, "I chuckled the first time I read the phrase 'man size safe'. It's a funny combination of words and the imagery it conjures up is both bizarre and disturbing. Cheney is a master of secrecy who avoids accountability and sees himself as above the law. The fact that he had such a safe in his office struck me as symbolic of his whole vice presidency and how he and others of his ilk have misused and abused their power."

Many of Allison's song titles grow out of his avid interest in politics, current events and other extra-musical topics. His 2001 release "Riding the Nuclear Tiger" was originally a headline in The Economist. His 2002 song "Disposable Genius" in one particular version, serves as the theme music to National Public Radio's "On the Media," underlining Allison's interest in news reporting and production and how it shapes our perceptions of the world. On his new album, the song "Roll Credits," in the composer's words, is "a throwback, to a time before Coca-colonized mass entertainment was shaken and sprayed in our faces." "Little Things Run the World" refers to E. O. Wilson's study of invisible organisms. Wilson's commentary on the interdependence of all creatures great and small is an underlying theme on the record and a direct inspiration for the album's title.

biography
From the outset of his musical career, bassist/composer Ben Allison has lived by a simple but effective credo: If you’re dissatisfied with the artistic environment you find yourself in, do something to change it.

Allison is one of a number of musicians who developed a personal voice in the New York jazz scene of the ’90s and up to today. He didn’t fit into any of the city’s prevailing factions: neither a neo-traditionalist nor a free-jazz purist, nor a working stiff content to play with the repertory big bands or in the Broadway pits or at countless weddings. Driven to create on his own terms, he found a way to thrive making his own eclectic music, informed by everything from Charles Mingus to Neil Young to drum-n-bass to African folk. In time, he built a reputation as one of the key movers and shakers on New York’s creative music circuit.

Over the years, Allison has led or co-led a succession of ensembles, including Medicine Wheel, the Herbie Nichols Project, Peace Pipe, the Kush Trio and, most recently, Man Size Safe (named for the curious item that Dick Cheney reportedly keeps in his office). In the process, Allison has not only created new music; he’s also helped develop new audiences for jazz. And he’s gained serious recognition for his efforts, winning Downbeat magazine’s Critics Poll in the “Rising Star Bassist” category for three straight years, from 2005 to 2007. His 2006 album Cowboy Justice (another titular reference to the Bush era) was #1 on the CMJ National Jazz radio charts for four weeks, and in the top 20 for over four months.

Ben Allison was born in 1966 in New Haven, Connecticut, where his mother sang Renaissance music at Yale. He spent his formative years (ages 4-9) banging on guitars, pans, pianos and whatever else he could find, recording it all on his father’s old Wollensack reel-to-reel. He loved playing it all back at different speeds, backwards and every which way. No one knew it yet, but his career in music experimentation had already begun.

Allison started out playing guitar and percussion. He attended high school on a shortened schedule, leaving at noon to study until 4pm at the Educational Center for the Arts (ECA), a performing arts school. He was not raised listening to jazz, but one day he found himself intrigued by a newspaper ad for the Yale radio station, which played an hour of jazz per week. He cut class in order to record it, and dove right in. Falling progressively in love with the music, he knew he would eventually move to New York.

During senior year, Allison played his first professional gigs on the salsa circuit in Connecticut and Massachusetts, where a large Latino population would flock to dance clubs on the weekends. During this time, he also played electric bass in a school concert at ECA and decided to make the switch. But he didn’t take up acoustic bass until 1985, during his freshman year at NYU, where he studied with jazz artists on the order of Joe Lovano, Dennis Irwin, Jim McNeely and Steve LaSpina.

In jazz, of course, the real lessons are on “the street,” in real-world performance situations. After graduating from NYU, Allison dedicated himself to original small-group music, and he found some like minds, ultimately forming a musician-run nonprofit called the Jazz Composers Collective. The Collective was born out of getting together in a basement with fellow independent musical thinkers. The one prerequisite was that each player had to bring in something new, even a sketch or idea. Allison was starting to find his voice, not by playing standards and workaday sessions, but by exploring with others in search of their own personal approaches. It was the most instructive period of his life thus far.

Eventually the time came to bring these ideas, quite literally, out of the basement. The Jazz Composers Collective presented its first concert in the fall of 1992. Modeled on Arnold Schoenberg’s Society for Private Musical Performances and Charles Mingus’s Jazz Workshop, the Collective strove to foster environments for the creation and presentation of risky new material, while at the same time demystifying the music and drawing people in. The goal, in the words of an early Collective manifesto, was to “create a forum where cross disciplines can become part of the conversation and no idea is excluded because it has ostensibly no potential for monetary gain.”

The Collective came to include five composers-in-residence: Allison (the Artistic Director), pianist Frank Kimbrough, saxophonists Ted Nash and Michael Blake and trumpeter Ron Horton. For the next 12 years, the Collective brought attention to these musicians and a great many others, carving out an alternative niche in the New York jazz world.

With funding from several foundations, the Collective published a newsletter and spearheaded an annual concert series, an annual week-long festival at New York’s Jazz Standard club, a residency at the Museum of Modern Art, regular tours and recordings by Collective members and also a number of musicians’ rights advocacy initiatives, including seminars on music publishing, intellectual property and other areas. Suzanne DiMaggio, Allison’s girlfriend (now wife), was the chairperson and chief administrative force behind much of this activity.

In 2004, having achieved much of what it set out to do, the Collective went into a self-imposed dormancy, with the option to relaunch as necessary. The composers-in-residence all remain very active, both separately and in collaboration. Allison has gone on to serve as an advisor to the Doris Duke Foundation/Chamber Music America jazz granting programs.

Allison released his debut, Seven Arrows, in 1995 on the Koch label. In 1998, with the album Medicine Wheel, he began a lasting and fruitful relationship with Palmetto Records, an important new indie jazz label. Six more Palmetto recordings have followed: Third Eye, Riding the Nuclear Tiger, Peace Pipe, Buzz, Cowboy Justice and (in early 2008) Little Things Run the World (titled after a quote from biodiversity expert E. O. Wilson).

Allison’s music is distinctly melodic, infectiously rhythmic, occasionally abstract, complex in its harmony and compositional logic but full of the breath of improvisational freedom. He often employs unconventional bass techniques such as strumming, retuning, playing with a drumstick to simulate a berimbau and so on. He has also made use of toy piano, cello, Wurlitzer and other instruments to generate unexpected sounds and textures. On Peace Pipe he collaborated with the Malian kora virtuoso Mamadou Diabate. Both Cowboy Justice and Little Things feature Steve Cardenas on electric and acoustic guitars, opening yet more sonic avenues in the music and giving it a cinematic feel.

Many of Allison’s song titles grow out of his avid interest in science, politics, current events and other extra-musical topics. “Riding the Nuclear Tiger” was originally a headline in The Economist. “Disposable Genius,” in one particular version, serves as the theme music to National Public Radio’s “On the Media,” underlining Allison’s interest in news reporting and production and how it shapes our perceptions of the world. “Roll Credits,” in the composer’s words, is “a throwback, to a time before Coca-colonized mass entertainment was shaken and sprayed in our faces.” “Little Things Run the World” refers to E. O. Wilson’s study of invisible organisms and sub-organisms that constitute much of life on earth, including our own bodies. In his liner notes Allison marvels at the “insects living, breathing, dying, all in the skyscraper that’s your eyelash.”

In the midst of his solo career, Allison also co-led the Herbie Nichols Project with Frank Kimbrough, interpreting works by the long-neglected ’50s pianist and producing three well-received albums: Love Is Proximity, Dr. Cyclops’ Dream and Strange City. He also performs with Steven Bernstein’s Millennial Territory Orchestra, Ted Nash’s Still Evolved, Michael Blake’s Free Association and other innovative New York bands. In addition, he plays bass for drag performance artists Joey Arias and Raven O, both of whom first unleashed their inimitable cabaret stylings on a fin de siecle New York far more decadent than it is today.

In 1998 Allison bought a partnership stake in the Moroccan-themed bar Kush on the Lower East Side, and performed there regularly with his Kush Trio until 2001. The bar closed in 2004 but reopened a few blocks away in 2005 as Kush Lounge.

At home, Allison likes to kick back with his vintage stereo gear and collection of fine scotch. He currently lives in New York’s Greenwich Village, with his wife, Suzanne, a foreign policy analyst, and their daughter Ruby.

Do you also would like to share your opinion? If so, please register or login here.

Details

Popular Songs

New Songs

Tracklisting

Ben Allison - Little Things Run The World