
For someone of Steve Allen's versatility and staggering capacity for work, jazz occupies a small yet significant portion of his biography. Yet despite his crowded agenda, Allen can still spin out facile, competent, bop-and-cocktail-flavored piano in fast jazz company -- nothing particularly original but always pleasurable to hear. He started to play the piano while a child - his parents were traveling vaudeville performers -- but the keyboard soon had to take a backseat to his media career, first on radio and then on television. Best-known as a comedian and the first host of the American TV institution, the Tonight Show (1954-57), Allen frequently played piano and sang on his shows and used them as a forum to present guests from the jazz world.
Year: 1985
Tracks: 8