Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

ALLEN, Woody

(b Allen Stewart Konigsberg, 1 December 1935, Brooklyn NY) Clarinettist; took lessons from Gene Sedric. He began on saxophone but found it too difficult; he plays the obsolete Albert system on an instrument with a wide bore to get a lot of volume. He played Monday nights at Michael's Pub in NYC for decades, an unprepossessing place with a $35 cover charge; he always packed it, after it closed moving to the Café Carlysle '97. By his own admission a barely competent revivalist, he had never recorded, but took a band on a tour of Europe '96, filmed by Barbara Kopple as Wild Man Blues, with Eddie Davis on banjo and Cynthia Sayer on piano; then released album The Bunk Project '93 (later a Jazz Heritage CD), a raw recording sounding like revival music perhaps should. He published an autiobiography Apropos of Nothing 2020, in which he made it clear that his music is as important to him as his day job, which is making movies. He played in the soundtrack of his own Sleepers '73.