John Allee's "BARDFLY" Melds Jazz with Shakespeare

“Now entertain conjecture of a time – maybe it’s 1958, maybe it’s 1598, maybe it’s today…” With those words, spoken slyly over a cool, hipster jazz groove, JOHN ALLEE draws us into BARDFLY, an otherworldly, super-literate and supremely swinging realm that finds the veteran stage and TV actor, singer-songwriter and all-around creative hyphenate fusing his dual lifelong passions for all things Shakespeare and jazz.

Showcasing his wide array of talents as a vocalist, composer, lyricist and dramatic performer, the eclectic 13-track set – in which he assumes the persona of Feste “The Bardfly” Johnson – mines compelling verses from a wide swath of the Bard’s canon from Othello to Henry IV as a foundation for everything from blues, ballads and hymns to compelling spoken word and swingin’ ditties. An award-winning author and composer of musical plays, the Los Angeles based Allee composed all the music for BARDFLY. While he set some of Shakespeare’s lyrics directly to music, on seven pieces he added words and phrases to dazzling dramatic effect, essentially becoming a co-writer with his muse.

Allee’s first professional “collaboration” with the Bard came via an LA Opera production of Benjamin Britten’s musical adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Gordon Davidson in which he played an airborne Puck. Among dozens of stage credits, Allee’s career since has included performances in other Shakespeare plays. In fact, BARDFLY grew organically out of Allee’s role as Twelfth Night’s Feste the Clown in a theatrical mashup called Barfly Shakespeare, presented at a night club in North Hollywood. He was tasked by the director with coming up with a jazz club vibe for the tunes and first landed on “The Wind and the Rain,” which he recast as an easy swinging, hepster strut. He would later choose that tune as the perfect closer to the album.