Ron Allen is a Canadian contemporary musician, composer and producer. Master of the bamboo flute of North India bansuri, reed flutes of Persia and Egypt, Ney and other ancient wind instruments, he evolved from a rather innovative tenor and soprano saxophonist that transferred his unique playing styles to bamboo flutes etc. creating a unique approach to both Jazz and eastern musics. He is fluent with the Daduke, Japanese shakuhachi (zen flute), Erhu violin, and bass flute, soprano and tenor saxophone and Turkish clarinet and modern jazz piano.
Allen is a noted expert in contemporary world music including jazz, classical and classical music of Indian, Persia and the Middle East. He composed, produced and performed his original music for Mel Gibson's film The Passion of The Christ, specifically the long scene as Christ slowly dies on the cross, as well as being heard throughout the filmscore. His use of the studio as an instrument influenced by sessions with Dan Lanois has made him a well known producer of unusual colourful music. Recently produced a CD on Live Unity for Quaali singer Shahid Ali Khan and has another in progress blending Shahid's voice with Flamenco.
Allen moved to Mississauga from Ottawa at the age of 13. He began with piano then by 19 was a jazz saxophonist protégé making jazz critics from the National newspaper The Globe and Mail very excited and the talk of the Toronto jazz community. He was locally known as an important musician in high-school receiving his grade 13 music credit within the first 3 days of grade 9.
He studied with Ted Moses from Bill Evans, Pat LaBarbera, Steve Grossman Miles Davis group, Hindustani music with G.S. Sachdev and Arun Naryan-Kalle, Arabic Classical with George Sawa and a variety of Sufi and world music masters. Ron then focused on his saxophones with unusual technical abilities using vocal phrasing from Billie Holiday to Oum Kalthum, moving across to the Bansuri and Ney flutes creating a unique standard. He taught several prominent others such as Ernie Tollar, and to a lesser extent Ravi Naimpali. etc.as well by 20 years was teaching advanced jazz saxophone for Toronto's York University the same year he declined admittance to the music program as a would be student himself.
At 19 he formed a trio with renown drummer Claude Ranger touring the continent playing alongside his jazz mentors. Allen's playing was initially influenced by John Coltrane, Bismallah Khan and Jan Garbarek on tenor; Charlie Parker on alto; his ability to circular breathe at 16 gained him legendary status at late night jazz clubs, and he brought out his first album "Leftovers" in the late 1970s. This was followed by work with Dan Lanois and the trio with bassist David Piltch called Strangeness Beauty, the album "Back to Nowhere" .
Allen introduced an entirely new approach to the challenging Coltrane composition Giant Steps during a Coltrane memorial concert with Pat Labarbera and himself on Sept 23/85 unlocking the mystery of this most difficult piece by using one simple symmetrical scale throughout it rather than traditional "changes" that turns the ever modulating song into a simple modal tune turning heads yet again. He has worked with jazz innovator Kenny Wheeler and sonic innovator Daniel Lanois, and himself has guided the post-modern generation of new Canadian jazz musicians He is heard on countless commercials, movie soundtracks, and over 30 of his own albums that increasingly progressed into several unique music directions, including world music, music for meditation, solo piano alias Tomas Walker , Perhaps partly the result of his experience as musical director and composer of modern dance music for the Robert Desrosiers and Menaka Thakkar dance company's with which he toured internationally, and had great success in showcasing new Canadian dance music. Allen then began producing other artists such as Geordie McDonald Out in the Open with Paul Bley, Mecca with John Gsowski and George Koller
Ron embarked upon extensive tours with a variety of situations including his own "Trio" with two monkish mannequins entitled "Music for Politicians" that was the ground work for the CD Saxart Sees the World dedicated to survivors of trauma recorded during the Persian gulf was in 1990. With an increasing interest in natural atmospheric music, and acoustic resonance he developed an interest in neuro sonics and the brain/body science with Dr. Lee Bartel for the Music for Your Health series of CDs sold in hospitals and speciality markets world wide.
During the fall of 2004, at Avery Fisher Hall New York city, Ron introduced Raga "Helix" based on the DNA spiral, bringing together the three separate musical worlds of Coltrane, Messiaen, and the Raga system into a new unified system that is the foundation of his next few years.
He was one of the first western musicians to draw on classical Indian music and classical Japanese tonality, Oliver Messiaen's symmetrical scale theories, As well as being inspired by first nations music, ceremonies, and the fusion elements of world music as far back as the late 1970s. His ground breaking music and dance ensemble Ritual Party celebrated ritual and trance without dogma or belief and was an artistic family providing a formative workshop for his students at the time including Ernie Tollar, Rick Hyslop. Roula Said and Maryem Hassan all forming an ensemble of their own later.
Currently he lives quietly in Toronto and tours internationally often for the Bahá'í Faith and Zen Buddhist events. He records for the Somerset label, the Avalon label and as alias Tomas Walker on the Reflections label. For his saxophone music the RSM label on .Mac.