Geri Allen's earlier 2006 album, Zodiac Suite: Revisited, a fine effort recorded under the banner of the Mary Lou Williams Collective, celebrated the legendary pianist by rescuing one of her major works from obscurity. On Timeless Portraits and Dreams Allen widens her scope, as she is wont to do, to bridge jazz, spirituals, and classical music. She performs lyrical solo pieces and jazz classics, demonstrates the art of the trio with Miles Davis alumni Ron Carter and Jimmy Cobb, backs the exceptional jazz singer Carmen Lundy with a vocal chorus, and features classical tenor George Shirley with the chorus on "I Have a Dream," written by Williams after Martin Luther King's assassination. Most projects like this have a tendency to veer off in different directions, but "Timeless Portraits and Dreams" hangs together beautifully, rooted in Allen's humanistic aims as a writer and musician and her comfort in varied settings. The seamlessly programmed CD also features her husband, trumpeter Wallace Roney, on an upbeat tribute to Billie Holiday, "Our Lady." On a single-song bonus disc, Shirley performs the song regarded as the black national anthem, "Lift Every Voice and Sing."

CD available at:
amazon.com