Allan Vaché
Clarinet

Allan Vaché, born December 16, 1953, grew up in Rahway, New Jersey where he attended school and graduated Rahway High School in 1971. He grew up in a musical family, with a father (Warren Vaché Sr.), a renowned bass player and with a brother (Warren Vaché, Jr.) who is well known for his expertise on cornet and flugelhorn. Allan not surprisingly took to music early and while at Jersey City State College from 1971-1975, studied with David Dworkin of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra as well as independently studying with the famous jazz artist, Kenny Davern.

During that same period 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, Lionel Hampton, Bob Wilber and many others. He also made numerous appearances with his brother Warren Vaché, Jr.

In 1974-1975 Allan appeared in an on stage band in the Broadway musical "Doctor Jazz" at the Winter Garden theater, starring Bobby Van and Lola Falana for which 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." With this organization, Allan has appeared numerous times on the Public Radio Series "Riverwalk, Live from the Landing" The band travelled extensively to Europe, Australia and Mexico, as well as making many festival appearances throughout the United States. Allan recorded nine albums and compact discs with this band, including the only jazz CD of the entire score of "Porgy and Bess", released on CBS Masterworks records. Vaché and the band also made many concert appearances of "Porgy and Bess" , many featuring opera great William Warfield as narrator, throughout the Western Hemisphere and 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 Culllum 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. In March 2006 he recorded a tribute to Benny Goodman for Arbors entitled “With Benny in Mind” to be released early in 2007.

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.