Chase, Allan (S.)

Chase, Allan (S.), jazz saxophonist, composer, educator, researcher; b. Willimatic, Conn., June 22, 1956. He grew up in Phoenix, Ariz., and received his bachelor’s degree in music theory and composition from Ariz. State Univ. (1978), where he studied composition. While still a student, he performed in clubs, concerts, and festivals with local jazz musicians. In the summers of 1978 and 1979, he studied improvisation and composition with Roscoe Mitchell, George Lewis, Karl Berger, Anthony Braxton, and others at the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, N.Y. Chase and jazz drummer Lewis Nash formed a duo (1979–80), performing locally. He moved to Boston in 1980 and completed a year of graduate study in jazz performance and arranging at New England Cons. From 1981 to 1990, he was a member of the faculty at Berklee Coll. of Music. In 1981 he joined Your Neighborhood Saxophone Quartet (YNSQ), which performed throughout New England; YNSQ recorded 13 of Chase’s compositions and seven of his arrangements. During the 1980s, he also led small jazz groups and played as a sideperson in and around Boston with Mick Goodrick, Donald Brown, Alan Daw-son, Teddy Kotick, D. Sharpe, Bob Moses, the Jazz Composers Orch., the Either/Orch., Julius Hemphill, Muhal Richard Abrams, and Jo Anne Brackeen. In 1992 he completed an M.A. in ethnomusicology at Tufts Univ. He lived in N.Y. from 1990 to 1996, where he performed with John Zorn, Rashied Ali, William Parker, Andrew Cyrille, Fred Hersch, Harvie Swartz, the Microscopic Septet, and the Walter Thompson Orch., while continuing to tour and record with YNSQ. He has done studio recordings for feature films, popular music records, TV, and radio. Since 1996 he has been the chairperson of the Jazz Studies and Improvisation Department at the New England Cons. of Music (where he has taught since 1994). He has appeared on recordings led by Zorn, Gunther Schuller, Joe Mulholland, Victor Mendoza, and others.

Discography

Composers in Red Sneakers (1984); Dark Clouds with Silver Linings (1995); Phoenix (1996). Your Neighborhood Saxophone Quartet: Your Neighborhood Saxophone Quartet (1985); The Walkman (1987); What’s Gone (1988); Boogie Stop Shuffle (1990); Plutonian Night (1991); Wolf Tone (1994). D. Katz and Jazz Composers’ Orch., featuring J. Hemphill: Dreamland (1989). D. Eade: The Ruby and the Pearl, featuring Stanley Cowell (1991). Prima Materia, featuring R. Ali: Peace on Earth (1995); Bells (1996); Meditations (1996). P. Johnston: Normalology (1997); Music for Films (1998).

—Lewis Porter