Born December
16, 1953
Allan Vache
was graduated from Roosevelt Elementary School, Rahway Junior High School, and
Rahway High School, Rahway, New Jersey 1959-1971. He also attended Jersey City
State College, Jersey City, New Jersey 1971-1975. At this time he studied with
David Dworkin of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and independently with famed
jazz artist Kenny Davern.
From 1972-1975 Allan also
performed many professional engagements with such jazz greats as Bobby Hackett,
Wild Bill Davison, Pee Wee Erwin, Gene Krupa, Dick Hyman, Max Kaminsky, Clark
Terry, Dick Wellstood, Ed Hubble, Cliff Leeman, Bob Haggart, Jack Lesberg, and
many others. He also made numerous appearances with his brother, famed jazz
cornetist Warren Vache, Jr.
From 1974-1975
Allan appeared in the Broadway musical "Doctor Jazz" at the Winter
Garden Theater, starring Bobby Van and Lola Falana. He performed with a band
that appeared onstage, and Luther Henderson and Dick Hyman wrote instrumental
arrangements.
In late 1975
Allan joined "The Jim Cullum Jazz Band" of San Antonio, Texas,
formerly "The Happy Jazz Band." He traveled extensively with this
band to Europe, Australia, and Mexico, as well as to many concert and festival
appearances throughout the U.S. He has recorded nine albums and compact discs
with this band, including the only jazz CD of the entire score of Gershwin’s
"Porgy and Bess," released on CBS Masterworks records. Concerts of "Porgy
& Bess," many featuring opera great William Warfield as narrator, were
performed by Vache and the band throughout the Western hemisphere, including
The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., and "The Cervantino Arts
Festival" in Mexico City, for the U.S. State Department.
Allan has
appeared in several "World Series of Jazz" concerts in San Antonio.
These concerts featured the "Cullum" band alongside such jazz
luminaries as Benny Goodman, Pete Fountain, Joe Venuti, Teddy Wilson, Scott
Hamilton, Bob Wilber, and many others. Allan appeared with Jim Cullum at
Carnegie Hall at the "Tribute to Turk Murphy" concert in January
1987. He has also performed with Cullum on the CBS Morning News, and PBS
television show "Austin City Limits." He also performed on NPR’s
"A Prairie Home Companion" with Garrison Keillor, and was a regular
performer on PRI’s "Riverwalk – Live from the Landing," from
1987-1992. This program aired on over 200 public radio stations in the U.S. and
abroad. Many of these shows are still rebroadcast today.
In the summer of 1992 Allan left San Antonio to
pursue a free-lance career. Since that time he has appeared as a solo-performer
at several jazz festivals and parties around the country and abroad. He has
appeared with pop performers Bonnie Rait and Leon Redbone and can be heard on
the soundtrack of the 1998 film “The Newton Boys”.
In 1993 he moved to Orlando, Florida to perform at
various Orlando attractions including Walt Disney World and Church Street
Station. Vache has numerous recordings to his credit, several under his own
name, for various labels. These include Audiophile, Jazzology, Arbors, and
Nagel-Heyer, of Hamburg, Germany. Vache has presently recorded twelve CDs for
this label, six of these as the leader. His latest CD “Ballads, Burners &
Blues”, released in March of 2004 for the Arbors label, includes his wife,
Vanessa Vache’, on clarinet, as a special guest.
Having toured
in Germany, Austria, England, Scotland, Ireland, Italy, Poland and Switzerland,
Allan continues to work as a freelance artist in the Orlando area as well as
appearing at many concerts and festivals in the U.S. and around the world.