Steve Allen

作者:理查德·吉内尔 对于像史蒂夫·艾伦这样多才多艺、工作能力惊人的人来说，爵士乐在他的传记中占据了很小但却很重要的一部分。然而，尽管日程排得满满的，艾伦仍然可以在快速爵士公司里弹奏出轻便、有能力、有bop和鸡尾酒味道的钢琴——没有什么特别新颖的，但听起来总是很愉快。当他还是个孩子的时候，他就开始弹钢琴——他的父母是旅行杂耍演员——但是键盘很快就不得不在他的媒体生涯中退居其次，首先是在广播上，然后是在电视上。艾伦以喜剧演员和美国电视机构《今夜秀》(1954-1957)的第一任主持人而闻名，他经常在他的节目中弹钢琴和唱歌，并把它们作为一个论坛来介绍来自爵士乐世界的客人。他还在1955年的电影《本尼·古德曼故事》中扮演主角，1962年制作了电视连续剧《美国爵士乐场景》，并在唱片《爵士乐故事》(珊瑚)中讲述了爵士乐的历史。艾伦在他电视生涯的巅峰时期经常为《珊瑚》、《圆点》、《轮盘赌》、《电子马克》和《德卡》录音，直到1992年，他还为《今晚演奏爵士乐》录制了一段令人愉快的主流音乐..除了大约43本书(还在继续)，艾伦声称(截至1994年)已经创作了4700多首歌曲，其中只有少数几首——“这可能是某件大事的开始”、“肉汤华尔兹”、“不可能”——在曲目中提出了要求。最终，艾伦对爵士乐最有价值的贡献是作为大众媒体的啦啦队长。 by Richard S. Ginell 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. He also played the lead role in the film The Benny Goodman Story in 1955, produced the TV series Jazz Scene USA in 1962, and narrated a history of jazz on records The Jazz Story (Coral). Allen recorded frequently for Coral, Dot, Roulette, EmArcy, and Decca during the peak of his TV fame and as late as 1992, taped an enjoyable mainstream set for Concord Jazz, Plays Jazz Tonight.. In addition to some 43 books (and counting), Allen claims to have written (as of 1994) more than 4,700 songs, of which only a bare handful -- "This Could Be The Start of Something (Big)," "Gravy Waltz," "Impossible" -- have staked claims in the repertoire. Ultimately Allen's most valuable contribution to jazz has been as a cheerleader in the mass media.