It was with Green that Allen met bassist Christian McBride. The two have teamed up frequently, working for many combos of big name leaders. McBride recruited Allen for his band, Christian McBride & Inside Straight. Allen is that quintet's drummer for both its first recording, Kinda Brown, and its road tours.
In 1988, Allen and Vincent Herring founded Big Apple Productions, which produced several albums featuring young jazz performers.
He joined the faculty of The Juilliard School in 2001 and became the Artistic Director of Jazz Studies in 2008.[5] He was replaced as director by Wynton Marsalis in 2013 and left Juilliard at the end of the academic year.[6]
In 2011, Allen appeared as himself in two episodes of the HBO series Tremé in a studio recording scene in New York City.
^Panken, Ted. "An Overdue Ovation for Carl Allen; Back with a vengeance, though he hardly left", JazzTimes, November 30, 2016. Accessed February 22, 2018. "The process began in October 1981, not long after Allen had matriculated at William Paterson University in New Jersey. He was there at the urging of drummer Mel Lewis, who befriended him during a four-day residency at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, during Allen’s freshman year."
