Faces to Watch in ’95 : We’re Counting on Them : JAZZ

Some of them you know. Some you don’t. But the following artists, entertainers and executives have one thing in common: We’re counting on each to mae a significant impact or difference in their respective fields this year. Sure, there will be thers who make a splash, but after we talked with dozens of people who work in entertainment and the arts, these were the names mentioned most often. You might say that Jim Carrey was a face to watch in ‘94, and you would be right. But, based on “Ace Ventura,” “The Mask,” and “Dumb and Dumber,” Carrey’s ’95 should bear watching. Another pair of familiar faces--Jay Leno and David Letterman--appear on our list. Why? Haven’t we looked at these guys enough? Well, truth be told, how do you know what’s going to happen to them this year? Fame can be sooooo fleeting.

Geri Allen

After years in which she was regarded as a musician’s musician, more praised than heard, pianist Geri Allen, 37, has finally pushed her way into the front row of an art that continues to be notoriously lacking in major female practitioners. Her creative vision has intensified dramatically in the last year, in part as the result of gigs with Ornette Coleman, Betty Carter and Wallace Roney. In performance, Allen plays crisp rhythmic up-tempo tunes and luxuriously harmonized ballads with an intensity that once and for all buries the familiar jazz chauvinist’s line: “She plays pretty good, for a chick.”

Allen’s eminently workable blend of future-looking mainstream improvising and basic, hard-edged swinging is superbly presented in her current album, “Twenty One,” which illustrates, far better than words can tell, the length and breadth of her growing talent. 1995 will be the year in which she emerges as an important jazz influence in her own right.