2010 JazzSea 10 day Caribbean Cruise

The 2010 JazzSea Caribbean Cruise was another memorable success. This year we boarded the brand new Celebrity Equinox in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and cruised to St. Thomas, Barbados, St. Kitts, Dominica, and St. Maarten, returning to Ft. Lauderdale after 10 days of good music and mostly calm seas.














I performed my solo concert with banjo and guitar along with piano accompanist, Karla West.


The next day, I conducted the Banjos Aweigh banjo band as they performed their concert with 30 musicians playing and singing their hearts out to a packed audience.










I conducted and rehearsed Banjos Aweigh - all amateur musicians - for a week before their concert and they sounded great within a day or two. The band consisted of tenor and plectrum banjos, tuba, trombone, clarinet, violin,piano, drums, washboards and spoons, gut-bucket, harmonicas, as well as a musical saw! We even had 3 lovely singers, the “Elegant Sweethearts”, on microphone to help with the sing along.

Glacier Jazz Festival, Oct. 2 & 3, 2009

I played a few shows at the beginning of October at the annual Glacier Jazz Festival in Kalispell, Montana. The music coordinator for the festival is Karla West whom you can see playing piano in the following photo. Karla is the leader of the "Rocky Mountain Rhythm Kings". I had fun playing with her band as well as some of the other featured bands at the festival. I also had my own concerts in which Karla accompanied me.

Germany Concerts, May 2009

I returned to Germany for my annual concerts in Pforzheim, as well as a concert and banjo workshop near Munich.

In the photo above, I had invited Rainer Daub, the Pforzheim concert organizer, to perform "Dueling Banjos".

After Pforzheim, Nida and I drove to Fuessen Germany, near Munich, to see King Ludwig's famous castle in one of the prettiest parts of Germany.













In the Munich area, I performed a concert which was organized by Hans Dengler, leader of the Munich Banjoband, some of whom are seen in the photo below, when I invited them to play during the concert.













Hans Dengler, seen in the picture with me and Nida, also arranged a banjo workshop for the following day.

The Jan. 3 - 10, 2009 JazzSea Caribbean Cruise

Tim Allan’s “Banjos Aweigh” On The 2009 JazzSea Cruise

It was very smooth cruising with the 2009 JazzSea Caribbean cruise aboard Holland America’s “M.S. Statendam”, from January 3 to 10. There was lots of music to hear and to play, plus great weather in various islands - all in 7 days of fun.

These annual January cruises allow musicians to play in an organized atmosphere as well as in informal jam sessions. There were 4 popular trad. jazz bands onboard, from the U.S. and Canada, as well as a “Jammers” band, led by Dick Williams, aimed at offering playing time to mostly horn players. The Banjos Aweigh band, which I conduct, is composed of banjo players along with horns, piano, drums, and washboards, all of whom are novices. It is amazing how quickly these band members catch on and produce listenable music, starting and finishing each song very cleanly. By the way, half of these band members had my “Banjos Aweigh Song Book” along with their music stands to help them get through each hour-long performance.

The “Banjos Aweigh Song Book” contains all the songs our band played onboard. You can purchase it on my website http://www.timallan.com/, in case you want to prepare for next year’s JazzSea cruise.

I also offered private lessons on various stringed instruments and brought along some new helpful banjo books and CDs that I had recently produced. My 2 different tenor banjo chord-diagrammed song books were popular with the tenor players, and my “Play Along-Practice Trax” book/CD combo, containing 22 banjo band songs, proved to be popular with all instruments.

If you are interested in being part of the JazzSea cruise next year, simply go online to http://www.jazzsea.com/.

Alaska JazzSea Cruise - July 25 - Aug. 1/08

The 7-day Alaskan JazzSea cruise proved to be an adventure, as a tourist and as a musician. The "Banjos Aweigh" band, which I conducted, was smaller than usual, but still entertained a packed "Hudson Room" venue. The "Buck Creek" jazz band was making its penultimate appearance on this cruise, with its final appearance on the Jan.3/09 Caribbean JazzSea cruise. They were missing their banjo player, so I happily sat in on a few occasions.

One of our Alaskan stops took us humpback whale watching (see photo I took) and another stop allowed us to see a calving glacier, The Marjerie Glacier, in Glacier Bay. You can see a video I took of the calving glacier on YouTube, by searching "timallanstrings". Our final port, before Seattle, was Victoria, B.C., where some of us musicians skipped over to "Hermann's" jazz club for a few songs.(See top photo). It was lots of fun!

Pforzheim, Germany, May 30 and 31/08

It was a fun 2 nights for me at the Bottich-Rathskeller in downtown Pforzheim. Rainer Daub, the organizer of my concerts, came up to the stage to play a few songs with me, including "Dueling Banjos". In the audience I was happy to see friends from nearby Sinsheim, including Gabi and Dierk Frerichs, the banjo collector who sold his huge collection to the Banjo Museum in Oklahoma. I was also pleased to meet Hans Dengler, the organizer of the newly-formed Munich Banjo Club, who drove all the way to Pforzheim for my concert.

New Song Arrangement Book and CD

I've just prepared a new 42 song arrangement book, specially prepared for tenor banjo players. Above every note of each song I have placed a tenor banjo Chord Diagram, indicating the precise fingering and location of the chord. To help the stuent learn the songs, I have also prepared a companion CD with all 42 songs recorded on solo tenor banjo at a slow tempo, so that each required chord can be heard clearly. This is my second volume of Easy Reading Song Arrangements. Just look down the merchandise column on the right.