Steve Allee, Pianist
Steve Allee has worked with Slide Hampton, Rufus Reid, Bob Mintzer, Phil Woods, Curtis Fuller, Jeff Hamilton and Milt Hinton, among others. He has composed original music for TV shows “Chicago Hope,” “Friends,” “NYPD Blue,” “Touched by an Angel” and “Dharma and Greg.”
Allee holds the record for most appearances on Aebersold Play-A-Longs; he is featured on 20.
What appealed to you, musically and aesthetically, about working on these Aebersold Play-A-Longs?
I know the value of practicing. When you are playing with real people, even though it is still an immovable object, there is so much information coming from the piano, bass and drums to the soloist that cannot even be written down. You have to experience the time feel and the differences between (bassists) Tyrone (Wheeler), between Rufus (Reid), between Todd Coolman, I mean, just go down the list.
I have to be honest and say that, early on, I didn’t really value the Play-A-Longs. I probably didn’t have the money to buy the Play-A-Longs, and my turntable probably never played them at the right speed to match the piano.
But then, I noticed that at the evening concerts that the (Jamey Aebersold jazz camp faculty) pianists’ comping was much more interesting than mine. And I thought, ‘What’s the difference?’
So I started studying and actually transcribing a few choruses of comping rhythms, some of the ideas, because I think I had all the chords. Harmony is my thing. But the rhythm of the comping I found intriguing because I found that there were some rhythms they were playing that I was not.
Describe the particular challenge for a pianist doing the Play-A-Longs without a soloist.
I constantly had to tell myself to leave more space for the soloist. I had to continue to remind myself that there’s an invisible partner here that you can’t hear. An inaudible partner, which is the horn soloist. I don’t want to steamroll over the horn soloist, so it was a constant reminder to try to keep the rhythms simple, but interesting.
Since we played so many choruses, the rhythm has to develop over, you know, 12 choruses, or however many choruses. It needed to be musical, but you can’t just repeat. You know, Band-in-a Box is going to repeat the same thing 12 times. And you just go crazy after that. With the Play-A-Long, the musicians would try to make it fun—to make it musical.
I try to be aware of the range of the soloists while I am playing. Not that I don’t get right on top of the range of a soloist, but I tended to start at a lower voicing and let them define their range, and then, as it progresses and they get comfortable, then I build and get on top of them.
I can also spread the voicing so that their sound is in the middle, and I am high and low, right hand, left hand.
And that helped the development of the 10 choruses that you are playing. That gives you a shape. You go first chorus maybe a little lower, start to move, maybe second chorus, maybe a little more rhythmically, maybe spread the voicings out. I think of voices as textures—thick and thin.
Do you have some amusing anecdotes about recording the Play-A-Longs in Aebersold’s basement?
We’re in the basement and at some point, there were wires hanging through the air connecting microphones and things that didn’t reach. And Steve Good (who engineered the Play-A-Longs) was usually behind me with his mixer and Jamey was sitting about 10 feet away at his desk with a stack of music and was producing.
Steve was running around, trying to set up everything, and Jamey was going, ‘Are you ready? Here we go.’ ‘OK. You ready to go?’ And Steve would say, ‘Jamey, just give me one more minute.’ I just a got a real kick out of those two guys going back and forth, just trying to get ready to record.
What I noticed was that I was just trying not to get uptight myself! I’m getting ready to record a whole album here of this challenging music—some I’ve never seen before—that I am sight reading, so I gotta keep my cool.
What should the general public understand about Aebersold’s legacy and accomplishments?
The thing that struck me the most, and continues to, is his positivity and embracing, with absolutely no judgment and 1,000 percent support, of any musician at any level. He’s so encouraging.
How many people do you know like that?