Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Henry “Red” Allen was born Henry James Allen on January 7, 1906 in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana. He took trumpet lessons early in his childhood and by his late teens was playing with Sidney Desvigne’s Southern Syncopators.

He was playing professionally by 1924 with the Excelsior Brass Band and the jazz dance bands, then played on the Mississippi riverboats and by 1927 was in Chicago playing with King Oliver and recording as a sideman with Clarence Williams. A move to New York landed him a recording deal with Victor Records. In 1929 Allen joined Luis Russell’s Orchestra where he was a featured soloist until 1932. Allen took part in recording sessions with Eddie Condon.

By late 1931he made a series of recordings with Don Redman and in 1933 joined Fletcher Henderson’s Orchestra where he stayed until 1934. He would go on to play with the orchestras of Lucky Millinder and Luis Russell, tour Europe with Kid Ory, work or record with Coleman Hawkins, Tommy Dorsey, Fats Waller, Jelly Roll Morton, Victoria Spivey and Billie Holiday.

As a leader he would record for ARC, Decca, Okeh, Vocalion, Brunswick and Apollo, led his own band at the Famous Door and the Metropole Café in New York City, toured the U.S. and Europe, and made an appearance on the Sound of Music television show. Diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in late 1966, and after undergoing surgery, jazz trumpeter and vocalist Henry “Red” Allen made a final tour of England ending six weeks before his death on April 17, 1967 in New York City.

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