Anything but Safe

By Patrick Ferrucci, New Haven Register, Conn.

Jun. 27–While your parents might have told you when you were a kid, that you’re wasting time watching television instead of doing homework and playing outside, for Ben Allison, those hours of staring at the boob tube proved an invaluable influence. Born and raised in New Haven, the 41-year-old jazz bassist has used those sounds, the cinematic scores of old television and film, to drive his new band, Man Size Safe.

“This group has a cinematic sound to it,” says Allison on the phone from his New York City apartment, “and it’s inspired by television and film. I grew up in the generation where TV theme songs was an artform, an era when musicans were playing elaborate scores for TV. You know, there’s some incredible music in ‘Tom and Jerry.’ That was the golden age of that. My music is heavily influenced by that. I’m thinking about juxtaposing fragments and taking disparate elements and creating something that changes over time. It kind of connects my interest in popular music with this kind of exploratory interest.”

A graduate of ACES Educational Center for the Arts in New Haven, Allison performed around the area many times, growing up playing both guitar and drums. He decided music was in his future, and thus had to decide between the two instruments. But instead of choosing one, he went with the bass, which he believed to be a perfect marriage between strings and percussion.

“I had an immediate affinity with the instrument,” he says. “I took my first acoustic bass lessons in town, in high school, and the rest is history.”

After graduating from high school, Allison left for New York University, and never left New York afterward. For a musician, he says, it’s the only place to be.

“I went to NYU,” says the 1989 graduate of the college, “mostly because I knew I wanted to pursue music as a profession and NYU is in the Village. The kind of music I was interested in, mainly jazz, improv and modern compositional music, is best learned by doing. There’s only so much you can get done in a classroom, and there’s more musicians per square foot in New York than any other place in the world.”

The songwriter grew up listening to rock music, with his first real music memory being listening to “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” but a moment in grade school turned his ears toward improvisational and modern jazz. It was a chance encounter with New Haven’s own Mitchell-Ruff duo that changed everything.

“Growing up in New Haven, rock was king,” says Allison, whose parents still live in the Elm City, “and if you listen to my newest album, you’ll hear that influence. It was probably fourth grade, maybe, and Dwike Mitchell and Willie Ruff, they did a bass and piano demonstration at my school. They were just doing some tunes and they were looking at each other, and I could tell by looking at them, they were surprising each other. That was a revelation for me because I thought music was always notated. Yet here were two older guys clearly having a spontaneous conversation. That’s where the seed was planted, and I’ve been curious ever since.”

And that curiosity is evident on “Little Things Run The World,” the newest Ben Allison & Man Size Safe record that’s been given glowing reviews in many music magazines. It’s a work that features all the touchstones of classic jazz, but brings the genre into the 21st century with elements of rock, Americana, Latin, folk and world music.

One of the things I wanted to get back to is that rock sensibility,” he explains, “because that’s what I listened to growing up. My first professional experience, actually, was with a salsa band in New Haven. For some, this music is challenging in that it’s instrumental, and nothing is necessarily obvious, but I also want to put things in that are immediately accessible. That’s what I’m exploring, but sometimes I only know it when I hear it.”

But unlike pre-planned music where everything is spelled out, Allison prefers letting his musicians find their own groove and improvise. When he knows the mood he wants for each project, he purposely chooses different musicians that he feels have a style that will add to the music. Very little is planned out in advance, and it’s something that the composer feels very strongly about.

“I’m creating a landscape that the musicians are free to explore,” he says. “It sounds very intellectual, but it’s really natural. It’s how people interact with each other already. When you talk with friends, you know each person’s personality, but you’re often surprised with what each other says. That’s what I try with music. And with my music, it sounds complicated, but the charts are maybe two pages. We do discuss it beforehand, though, because I feel like a lot of what I’m trying to do musically is better described in words than notes.

“I write a lot of stuff, but throw out about 95 percent of it. I usually record a lot of fragments, almost in a scrapbook fashion, usually by playing or sitting at a piano or guitar and coming up with fragments that sound interesting, catchy or provocative, and then assembling those fragments into something that feels good.”

IF YOU GO

–Event: Ben Allison & Man Size Safe –When: 7 tonight –Place: Elm Street Stage on the New Haven Green –Tickets: Free –Info: www.artidea.org

—–

To see more of New Haven Register, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.nhregister.com.

Copyright (c) 2008, New Haven Register, Conn.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.