Soka Performing Arts Center Presents Harry Allen Trio

(Aliso Viejo, CA, November 19, 2019) – Soka Performing Arts Center presents the Harry Allen Trio on Saturday, February 1, 2020 at 8pm. Considered a throwback since his choice of material is jazz standards, Allen’s style has been described as jazz music played the way it was “meant” to be played: with confidence, straight-forward and without fussiness or frivolity, beautifully, and with the melody of the saxophone up front. The trio includes Harry Allen, tenor sax; Ehud Asherie, piano; Chuck Redd, drums.

About Harry Allen, tenor sax
Harry Allen has over thirty recordings to his name. Three of Harry’s CDs have won Gold Disc Awards from Japan’s Swing Journal Magazine, and his CD Tenors Anyone? won both the Gold Disc Award and the New Star Award. His recordings have made the top ten list for favorite new releases in Swing Journal Magazine’s reader’s poll and Jazz Journal International’s critic’s poll for 1997. Eu Nao Quero Dancar (I Won’t Dance), the third Gold Disc Award winner, was voted second for album of the year for 1998 by Swing Journal Magazine’s reader’s poll. 

Harry has performed at jazz festivals and clubs worldwide, frequently touring the United States, Europe and Asia. He has performed with Rosemary Clooney, Sheryl Crow, Kenny Barron, Dave McKenna, Dori Caymmi, Larry Goldings, George Mraz, Jake Hanna, and Al Foster, among others. He is featured on many of John Pizzarelli’s recordings including the soundtrack and an on-screen cameo in the feature film The Out of Towners starring Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn.

Harry was born in Washington D.C. in 1966, and was raised in Los Angeles, CA and Burrillville, RI. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in music in 1988 from Rutgers University in New Jersey, and currently resides in New York City.

About Ehud Asherie, piano
Largely self-taught, or rather, “old-schooled,” Asherie learned the ropes at Smalls, spending much of his early teens becoming a fixture of the late-night jam sessions held at this now legendary Greenwich Village club in New York City. Mentored by the late Frank Hewitt, Asherie began to develop “his virtuosity and his ear for clean, crisp lines” (The Star-Ledger). Later, an admiration for earlier piano styles took hold; soon enough Asherie had absorbed them into his playing becoming, in the words of The New Yorker, “A master of swing and stride.” His present style combines this broad tradition, merging idioms into a distinctly personalized approach.

Among numerous albums recorded as sideman, acclaimed album releases under Ehud Asherie’s leadership have included Shuffle Along which reinterpreted the music of Eubie Blake; Organic, which finds Asherie on organ; and Upper West Side and Lower East Side, duet projects featuring the saxophonist Harry Allen and his trio recording Music Makes Me. Asherie’s most recent trio recording is Wild Man Blues on the Capri Label.

Ehud has worked with a broad range of musicians including Cécile McLorin Salvant, Wycliffe Gordon, Catherine Russell, John Pizzarelli, and Charles McPherson, and has performed at clubs and festivals in South America, Europe, Asia, and throughout the U.S. His playing can be heard on numerous celebrated recordings, including the 2010 Grammy Award winning soundtrack of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. 

About Chuck Redd, drums
Chuck Redd is well known internationally as a performer on drums and vibraphone. Chuck began recording and touring the globe when he joined the Charlie Byrd Trio at the age of 21. He also became a member of the Great Guitars (Barney Kessel, Byrd and Herb Ellis). To his credit are 25 European tours and six tours of Japan with the Barney Kessel Trio, Ken Peplowski and the Benny Goodman Tribute Orchestra, Terry Gibbs and Conte Candoli. He served as Artist-In-Residence at The Smithsonian Jazz Café in Washington D.C. from 2004-2008. 

Chuck is the 2019 musical director of The Oregon Festival of American Music. He is a featured soloist annually at The W.C. Handy Music Festival, The Newport Beach Jazz Party, The West Texas Jazz Party, The North Carolina Jazz Festival and The Roswell Jazz Festival. Chuck was featured vibraphonist with the Mel Torme All-Star Jazz Quintet from 1991 until 1996. 

Chuck’s career highlights include a concert with the Dizzy Gillespie Quintet in Africa for the Namibian Independence Celebration, a recital at the White House with the Barney Kessel Trio, four concerts at Carnegie Hall with the Mel Torme Quintet, The Great Guitars and The Charlie Byrd Trio and an appearance on The Tonight Show.

Tickets are $31.50-$45 and are now available online at performingarts.soka.edu, at the Box Office at
1 University Drive in Aliso Viejo or by calling (949) 480-4ART (4287).

About Soka Performing Arts Center
Now is in its ninth season of presenting the best of live performances on its extraordinary stage, Soka Performing Arts Center, located on the campus of Soka University of America in Aliso Viejo, California, is under the new leadership of General Manager Renee Bodie. The 1,000-seat concert hall features world-class acoustics designed by Yasuhisa Toyota, acoustic designer of noted performance venues like Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and Suntory Hall in Tokyo.

Designed to truly reflect the university’s commitment to sustainability, the concert hall and adjacent Maathai Hall (featuring a black box theatre and dance studio) have been built to Gold LEED standards and feature vegetated green roofs. Photo voltaic cells on the Soka Performing Arts Center roof generate approximately 15% of the facility’s electrical needs.   

Soka University of America is a private, non-profit, four-year liberal arts college and graduate program. The university is open to top students of all nationalities and beliefs and was founded upon the Buddhist principles of peace, human rights, and the sanctity of life. For more information, please visit soka.edu.

HARRY ALLEN TRIO
Saturday, February 1 at 8PM

Harry Allen, tenor sax
Ehud Asherie, piano
Chuck Redd, drums

Event URL:          http://bit.ly/2XzrfaG

TICKETS              $31.50 - $45
In Person:            Soka Performing Arts Center Box Office, 1 University Drive, Aliso Viejo, CA 92656
Online:                 performingarts.soka.edu
Phone:                 949.480.4ART (4278)

All information is accurate at the time of printing but is subject to change.

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