Red Door – 2023
Harry Allen
Allen leads a septet with four saxophonists through a swinger
Harry Allen has long been one of the top swing-based tenor-saxophonists and has recorded and performed in a countless number of settings.
In 2023 for a jazz festival, he assembled his “All Star New York Saxophone Band,” a septet comprised of Allen, Ken Peplowski and Grant Stewart on tenors, baritonist Gary Smulyan, guitarist James Chirillo, bassist Mike Karn, and drummer Aaron Kimmel.
The group could have called the “Four Brothers Band” for its similarity to the Woody Herman Second Herd sax section.
Very much in the tradition of West Coast cool jazz of the 1950s, the group’s version of the Gerry Mulligan/Zoot Sims song “Red Door” features solos (in this order) by Chirillo, Allen, Smulyan, Stewart and Peplowski.
-Scott Yanow
Ella Fitzgerald