Allan Walker
Allan Walker is a jazz saxophonist with deep roots in R&B and a resume that includes tours and recordings with some of the biggest names in the music business. By the time he was fifteen, he was good enough to start accompanying artists from Motown, Stax, King, and other major labels at the time who needed a pick-up band when they played between D.C. and Miami. But his career started to really take off at the age of sixteen when he began recording and touring nationally and internationally with acts like The Temptations, The Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, The Coasters, The Drifters, Little Anthony and the Imperials, and countless others. In the late 1960’s, already a successful and in-demand player, he started to become seriously interested in jazz. He was inspired by the likes of Clyde “Fats” Wright, an excellent pianist, and Don Pullen, the amazing pianist/organist that Allan got to play with whenever he was in town. He was privileged to perform at one of the last dinners honoring Richard Pryor at for the first Mark Twain Awards Ceremony at Lincoln Center, which included luminaries like Robin Williams, Chris Kristofferson, Danny Glover, Morgan Freeman, Chris Tucker and Ruth Brown. He attended a private fund raising party at Will and Jaden Smith’s house for President Obama (where he got a chance to kiss the first lady), and started working with some major blues players, like Roy Gains, Sugaray Rayford, for whom he arranged several horn parts on his Blind Alley CD, and many others. Ralph Carter, the music director for Eddie Money and Sugaray, offered him the opportunity to record and arrange horn parts on many songs for some Jane Fonda videos, which led him to performing live on the “Today Show” with Fonda. Since then, he has played on many CD’s as a sideman, horn arranger, and soloist and released his own CD project in 2014.