Luther S. Allison, a Jazz Pianist With Big Hands and Bigger Traditions

On a beautiful day in Harlem a few months before the release of his debut album, Luther S. Allison stood chatting a few yards away from Duke Ellington’s white baby grand. Allison, a wiry 6’4” with huge hands and a contagious enthusiasm, was surrounded by history at the National Jazz Museum — Eddie Lockjaw Davis’s tenor saxophone, the famous Great Day in Harlem photo of 57 musicians taken on a stoop on 126th Street. It was a fitting scene for the pianist, a 28-year-old up-and-comer who’s drawn comparisons to Mulgrew Miller and learned to use the past as fuel for his own future.

Over the last whirlwind year, Allison won his first Grammy (for his work with the jazz vocalist Samara Joy), acted in and played music for Maggie Gyllenhaal’s movie “The Bride,” toured nationally with the singer Ekep Nkwelle, performed at the Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival with the bassist Endea Owens and landed a fellowship at the Jazz Museum’s Jazz Is: Now! program, which involves playing and curating a series of events. It’s all happened so quickly, he hasn’t even had time to hire a manager.

On Friday, Allison will release his first LP, “I Owe It All to You,” on Posi-Tone, and then he’ll soon hit the road again. Jazz at Lincoln Center has chosen him as a featured artist for a 40-city bandleading tour across the country, arranging, playing and directing the music of New Orleans; he’ll also tour Mexico with his own band in October.

“I’ve had unique opportunities to play with my elders,” Allison said in his Southern lilt. “That gave me a lot more visibility than if I was only playing with people my age range.” While an undergraduate student at the University of Tennessee, his mentor was Donald Brown, the Jazz Messengers pianist who schooled him on Memphis greats like Miller, Harold Mabern and James Williams.

“Donald would tell stories about them,” Allison said, smiling at the memory. “It felt like we could have been just in his living room. He was just playing us music and expressing himself freely and it was so soulful.”