Music master

Bob Allen’s improvisations make him an enduring favorite

Saturday, April 08, 2006

Barbara Zuck

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Shortly before 8 p.m. on a recent Saturday, Bob Allen quietly made his way into the lounge at Hyde Park steakhouse in Upper Arlington.

Regulars greeted him and the room began to crowd as Allen — leader of the Bob Allen Trio — took his seat at the piano.

Midway through the first number, On the Street Where You Live, he tore into an improvisation in the 18 th-century counterpoint style of Bach.

‘‘He is like an orchestra," said Paul Hickfang, professor emeritus at Ohio State University’s School of Music. ‘‘He is an orchestra. He commands your attention. He’s an artist with any and all genres of music. He makes me cry, and he’ll make you jump for joy with Bach, Mozart or the Beatles."

Allen, blind since birth, studied classical music; played with symphonies; and teaches classical piano.

For more than 40 years, though, he has made a living in bars, restaurants and lounges, applying classical touches to jazz and pop standards in a style unmistakably his own.

On that Saturday night, Allen teased listeners by dropping Rachmaninoff and Schumann into well-known tunes by Richard Rodgers and Henry Mancini.

‘‘I don’t always play what most people call jazz," he said. ‘‘I like to take a popular tune and use it as raw material for a composition so that the original song assumes lesser importance than the new piece I am playing.

‘‘That’s good or bad, depending on how you feel about the song."

If Allen’s popularity is any indication, it must be good.

The 65-year-old musician has outlasted many of his colleagues — and many of the clubs.

He has performed at well-known Columbus establishments that are only memories, including two of the most famous: the Maramor supper club, where Tony Bennett, Carol Channing and other top entertainers appeared; and the Christopher Inn on E. Broad Street where Allen’s trio appeared from 1967 to 1987.

Along the way, he attracted a devoted following.

One of those who caught a show at the Christopher Inn was comedian Phyllis Diller.

"People were getting loud, and she got up and yelled: ‘Shut up! Don’t you realize there is a (expletive) genius in here?" Allen recalled.

"The place got deathly quiet. There are just some people in the world you don’t mess with."

Blind jazz pianist George Shearing, a friend of Allen’s, once stopped by to chat.

"He said he wanted to introduce a friend. It was (concert pianist) Gary Graffman, who had just played with the Columbus Symphony. I would have been terrified if I’d known he was in the audience."

At the peak of the lounge era, Allen played twice a day, six days a week. He regrets the decline of such establishments, although the lounge atmosphere didn’t help his first four marriages and probably encouraged him to smoke and drink more than was good for his health.

"Anyone who has a job where you are gone six nights a week knows that it can have an impact on relationships," he said.

He gave up heavy drinking long ago but is still trying to kick cigarettes, especially after a 2003 heart attack, a triple bypass and valve-replacement surgery.

A Milwaukee friend, Mickey Lundgren, whom he met in an Internet chat room was visiting at the time. She decided to stay and look after Allen when he got out of the hospital.

Soon after Allen got home, though, Lundgren fell down the basement stairs and broke both wrists.

"I was stuck here," she said. "When you are stuck with someone that long, you might as well marry them."

She became wife No. 5 in September 2004.

Lundgren, like her husband, has been blind since birth.

Allen, born Robert Allen Prahin to Croatian parents in Cleveland (he took his middle name as a stage name), suffered an untreatable form of congenital glaucoma. Although he could detect light as a youth, he lost all vision by the time he was a teenager.

Worried how their son would support himself, his parents made him take piano lessons from the age of 6.

"By the time I was 12 or 13, I wanted to quit and go to MIT and become an electronics wizard," Allen said. "My parents said I could do all the electronics I wanted as long as I practiced."

Practice he did, and when he was ready for college, he became a music major. By the time he graduated from Capital University in 1963 with majors in piano and composition, he had already spent time in clubs.

"I discovered that people would pay me to play the piano," he said. "I was earning $100 a week and could take girls to fancy places."

When he became leader of his own trio — with older and more experienced players — he had to learn how to improvise. It was only natural that he drew on classical music, developing the style that would distinguish him for decades.

"Bob has the classical chops, no doubt about it," said Tom Battenberg, a Columbus trumpet player who occasionally plays the club scene.

"He plays like a classical musician, but he can improvise like crazy."

Allen has three grown children, but his second family is his trio, featuring Roger Hines on bass and Joe Ong on drums. Allen has recorded seven albums with other players and has just released his first disc, My Favorite Things, with this ensemble.

Hines, who played bass for 20 years for Ray Charles and 12 years for Diane Schuur, said the trio members routinely challenge one another.

"Bob comes up with really interesting and difficult arrangements," Hines said.

It’s all part of Allen’s philosophy.

"I always said I didn’t want to play background music, so we try to be in the foreground as much as possible."

bzuck@dispatch.com