Tribute to sax player Mike Allen ends Sudden Valley 2015 season

For five years, Vancouver, B.C., saxophonist Mike Allen was the head of the jazz program at Western Washington University. Not coincidentally, the interest in jazz in Bellingham showed a definite uptick during that time.

Allen still teaches at Western and he has fostered many students individually, and promoted an atmosphere where young Western graduates can now be seen in many jazz performances in the Northwest, says Sudden Valley jazz enthusiast K.C. Sulkin.