Photo provided Jazz at Helen’s alum Steve Allee is shown at a performance.
In the film industry, the “magic hour” is described as the hour right after sunset, a time when the lighting appears to have a soft and warm glow. That term served as the inspiration behind the title of beloved Brown County jazz artist Steve Allee’s album “The Magic Hour.”
Coincidentally, the “magic hour” is close to when Allee and his Magic Hour Band will be performing on Aug. 14 as part of the JazzIN Columbus series.
The concert begins at 6 p.m. at 400 Washington St. It is free to attend.
According to Allee, the Magic Hour Band is based off the recording “The Magic Hour” that he produced in the 1990s. This 13-track album features contemporary jazz tunes, featuring titles “Quantum Soup” and “Stormfront.”
“I used to be kind of a jazz purist, I guess you would say, where I would only play John Coltrane and Miles Davis and people like that,” Allee said. “But as I aged, I started branching out and listening to other groups and the line of jazz kind of blurred.”
Allee, believing he could make a contribution to contemporary jazz, began writing and recording songs in this style. While writing, he said Indianapolis saxophonist, producer and writer Tom Borton came to one of his sessions and said he would like to produce an album in that style.
The two then flew out to Los Angeles and spent days upon days recording this album, an opportunity Allee said he was thrilled to have.
“… I learned so much in this process about recording and sounds and song structure,” Allee said. “It really opened my eyes to… distilling the music down to its essence and really just cutting out all the extra stuff so you just hear the essence of a song, and my friend Tom helped me to achieve that.”
Then a couple years ago, saxophonist Rob Dixon approached Allee with the idea to revisit “The Magic Hour.” They then went on to perform this at the Jazz Kitchen in Indianapolis to a great response from the audience.
“I think the music held up in that it doesn’t sound dated to me and to me the recording doesn’t sound dated,” Allee said. “Sometimes you can hear an older recording and say, ‘oh yeah, they used that old keyboard sound’ or ‘they used the drum machine’ or something like that, but that was not the case for this album.”
Now, Steve Allee and the Magic Hour Band have performed during last year’s Indy Jazz Festival and as part of the previous JazzIN Columbus series. Allee said last year’s Columbus performance went very well, with him estimating almost 400 people in attendance.
“I love getting together with my fellow musicians and performing this music, and I like to see the reaction from the audience,” Allee said. ”I think people were really very pleased with the band last year, if people are kind of moving around and have smiles on their face, then we’re doing our job.”
The band consists of Allee on piano, Dixon on saxophone, Marlin McKay on trumpet and flugelhorn, Shawn McGowan on keyboards, Jon Wood on bass and Richard “Sleepy” Floyd on drums. Their upcoming Columbus performance will include selections from “The Magic Hour” album, in addition to some original compositions from Dixon that Allee felt fit right in with the album.
“I always like to add brand new songs into our set, songs that have not been performed before,” Allee said.
