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Dave Allen

Guitarist, composer, educator, author

About Me

Born in Philadelphia, Allen began performing and composing at the age of 15. After discovering the music of John Coltrane, Pat Metheny, and Keith Jarrett, he moved to New York City to attend the Manhattan School of Music where he studied with Jack Wilkins and John Abercrombie. Over the next twenty-five years Allen performed with many of the most respected musicians in jazz today, including Mark Turner, Miguel Zenon, Joey Baron, David Liebman, Ravi Coltrane, Dave Binney, Jeff Ballard, Seamus Blake, Donny McCaslin, Marcus Gilmore, Dan Weiss, Tyshawn Sorey, Drew Gress, and many others. He has toured with his own projects and as a sideman throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia. He has released three critically acclaimed recordings, the most recent being “The Sky Above Her”, and has been written about in the New York Times, Downbeat Magazine and Jazz Times Magazine. All About Jazz writes: “Allen has found a true voice, his effortless technique downplays the apparent complexity, paradoxically creating a cool surface sheen that has a white heat glowing beneath it...music that seduces both the body and mind, again and again.”

As a composer, Allen is known for his challenging but lyrical music which features multi-metered, rhythmic layering, as well as intricate harmonies. He has composed works based on the paintings of Willem de Kooning, the poetry of Wallace Stevens, and the films of Stan Brakage, as well as a suite for guitar, string quartet, and rhythm section, which has been performed in Istanbul, Berlin and New York. Allen was the jazz composer in residence at The Kimmel Center in 2019.

As an educator, Allen specializes in modern rhythmic concepts and harmonic vocabulary. Allen has been a faculty member of the New York Jazz Academy and The Bahcesahir University graduate program. He has also taught at New York University, Temple University, and is currently a senior lecturer at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. His new book, “Advanced Rhythmic Concepts for Improvisers” will be published by Mel Bay in Spring of 2022. The book offers the advancing student a method to expand their rhythmic vocabulary and explore some of the more challenging aspects of the modern jazz idiom. It puts rhythm and time-feel front and center, and offers techniques for strengthening your inner metronome, enhancing your time-feel, expanding your rhythmic flexibility, and especially, learning how to improvise fluently in odd meters. The book includes over 120 audio tracks, with 62 backing tracks featuring a superb rhythm section for the student to play along with. There are multiple examples of grooves in each meter, as well as multi-meter exercises, arrangements of standards, an exploration of triplet groupings, polyrhythmic exercises, and full compositions.

Critic’s reviews

“Allen has found a true voice, his effortless technique downplays the apparent complexity, paradoxically creating a cool surface sheen that has a white heat glowing beneath it...music that seduces both the body and mind, again and again.” - All About Jazz ”Dave Allen is one of a number of spitfire jazz guitarists raising the bar on that ever-popular instrument. But Allen offers more than battle-ready chops—his Untold Stories and Real and Imagined are about original music, loftily conceived, with graceful melodic content and subtle rhythmic challenges. He’s got the pull to assemble world-class bands every time out.” - David Adler, Jazz Times Magazine

“An exciting and unique player in the mold of Pat Metheny, Ben Monder and Adam Rogers. Monster chops, harmonic resourcefulness, strong melodic sense, seamless group interaction, considerable compositional talent and a kick-ass group of talented players make this CD an electrifying piece of work.” - Lyle Robinson, Jazzguitarlife.com

“Compositional creativity...fiendishly clever constructions...The music's challenging aspects are undeniable, but there's an inviting quality to Allen's writing that renders it enjoyable even in its most labyrinthine moments. Allen's guitar playing reflects a maturity that allows him to avoid ostentation in favor of thoughtful solos that are both expertly played and lyrical. With music that is both sophisticated in its concept and execution and, at the same time, deeply engaging, The Sky Above Her is a keeper, reflecting Allen's notable strengths as a guitarist, bandleader and composer.” -Troy Dostert, All About Jazz

“Mr. Allen is a guitarist with a coolly modernistic sensibility, as he demonstrates on a forthcoming album, “Real and Imagined” (Fresh Sound New Talent).” - Nate Chinen, New York Times

“Allen has a fully developed and mature approach to composition, technical command of his instrument, and the inspirational fortitude to pull wonderful music from the ensemble. Each piece is like an aural painting or film in the way it slides across the psyche.” - Farrell Lowe, All About Jazz ”Allen has what could be dubbed as “string-imagination,” the ability to quickly form and rethink patterns like moving water—flowing, lucid and spontaneous, paired with superior comping skills—filling in the gaps with creative touches and chord-work.” - Mark F. Turner, All About Jazz ”A number of tracks have melodies that etched themselves in my mind. The music is full of subtlety. Allen has no seeming limit to his technique, but he always puts it to good musical ends.” - Budd Koppman, AllAboutJazz.com “There is a true sensuality to the guitarist’s sound... unfolding his lines with an edge-of-your-seat stealth” - Jim Macnie, Village Voice

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