aberkok

I want to, in this thread, share some of the great jazz piano recordings. This can be any combination of players, but you have to give a reason why you think the recording is great. I invite you to then comment on what people have put up.

For example, when people ask me if I like Vince Guaraldi, I always have to respond by getting them to check out Bill Evans (early recordings) and Keith Jarrett 1970s stuff, as that's where I think he "came from" musically speaking. Similarly, you'd be missing out as a Harry Connick Jr. fan if you don't listen to Duke Ellington's small group sessions and Thelonious Monk.

The purpose of this thread isn't to get into an argument over what is and isn't jazz, so I'll keep my mouth shut if Yanni but to increase our breadth of knowledge so we can get down and enjoy some great music we may not have known about! Here I go:

McCoy Tyner - Reaching Fourth - There's not too many trio sessions with McCoy and we usually don't get to hear him in the old days without the towering figure of Coltrane. This is with Roy Haynes on drums and it's a chance to get to know what McCoy's doing more intimately. Probably my favourite thing about it is its cheesy title, and if you get the double entendre, you can come join the nerd club with me.

Kenny Kirkland - Black Codes From The Underground - This is a Wynton Marsalis album and one of the late Kenny Kirkland's finest ever recording sessions. His rhythm section relationship with Jeff "Tain" Watts is the closest I can think of ever, and is the definition of power. Especially on the track "Chambers of Tain."

Jason Moran - Bandwagon - Moran is extremely inventive. My favourite stuff on this trio session is the excerpts from the "word" cycle. On one of them, he "melodizes" a conversation his agent is having, in Turkish, on her cellphone. He then loops certain parts of it and uses it as a rhythmic basis for improvising. You have to hear it to believe it.

I've got tons more but I'd love to hear from you. I hope this thread has some appeal. Throw in!!

__________________
!check out my new blog! http://arkanamusic.wordpress.com

Warden Gentiles: "It? Perfectly innocent. But I can see how, if our roles were reversed, I might have you beaten with a pillowcase full of batteries."

jth

great stuff. I have two of those albums (Bandwagon and McCoy) although haven't spun them in a long while.

My favorite Jazz Piano albums would probably be like..

Chic Corea - Now she sings, now she sobs - Classic Chic already such a strong identity so early in his career. Windows, THe Matrix... flawless jazz playing
Keith Jarrett - Standards in Norway - To play these tunes the way these three guys do is so inspirational it makes me wish I was a pianist and not a guitarist
Bill Evans - Live at the VIllage Vanguard - I don't think anything more needs to be said about this album
Bill Evans and Jim Hall - Undercurrents the masters of subtle harmony on their instruments, so tasteful, so inventive

Right now I'm really into the new Brad Mehldau/Pat Metheny album which I think is a clinic in how to play with a pianist from a guitarists pov and visa versa. They listen so closely to each other and feed off each other's amazing abilities. Nothing seems forced despite the challening nature of the pieces they play.

__________________
"A real leader faces the music, even if he doesn't like the tune." - unknown quote

roachboy

i think of "jazz piano" in a kind of big sense...

the greats:


sun ra: i love love love sun ra. i cant say enough about what a great player the ra was.

cecil taylor: unit structures, live in montreaux
technically and conceptually, cecil is on a different plane than most jazz players. if anyone builds a vocabulary using clusters, they sound like bad cecil impersonators. he is that good. part of the reason why i like crispell and schweitzer so much is that they manage touse this vocabulary and take it somewhere that is very different from cecil--that is quite difficult to pull off.

thelonious monk; blue note sessions, brilliant corners
monk.
damn.

duke ellington: i like money jungle alot. i like alot of duke's work, tho--his playing is fascinating. i almost think that no matter how great the bands were, no matter how effective the arrangements, i almost wish they weren't there and i could hear duke play stride more.

marilyn crispell--the recordings with the braxton group. wow.

irene schweitzer--a great, very underrated swiss player.

bud powell---the few recordings you can get of powell in his prime are all amazing. i like "mad bebop" alot.

james p. johnson: best stride player i have ever heard. bar none.
try playing stride and you'll understand why this is so imposing.

mccoy tyner: every once in a while, you can hear him break out of the 4-maj7 chord thing he likes so much and do two-handed work--the last live recording he did with coltrane before elvin jones quit the band, for example. can't remember the title. it's from 1965. people tend to forget that tyner was about 17 when he started playing with coltrane. what a great pianist--i just--o i dunno--got tired of the same thing all the time. so i like best those places where you can hear something else in his playing.

bill evans is a great player that i dislike intensely. too much debussy, not enough schoenberg.


i kind of outgrew keith jarrett. i still think his playing on arbor zena and with the american quartet is lovely, however.

corea: i like his early stuff, with circle and the solo improvisations--and with miles davis (the ring modulated fender rhodes playing in the newly released live at the fillmore from 1970 for exampe).
he is a hell of a pianist technically.
i just dont really like alot of his stuff, and less and less of it as you get closer to the present.

great pianists you may not know much about:
herbie nichols
andrew hill

thinking. may post more later.
nice thread. btw

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

aberkok

That's exciting, Roach. I have heard some of these for sure, but still plenty left to explore.

As far as Evans, I can certainly accept your dislike, but he really is a different player at the beginning of his output than at the middle or end. Most people know the middle Evans but you should be sure to check out Everybody Digs Bill Evans, Portrait In Jazz and Sunday At The Village Vanguard before deciding. I'll assume you have though. In which case, it's not like he needs wider exposure so dislike away.

__________________
!check out my new blog! http://arkanamusic.wordpress.com

Warden Gentiles: "It? Perfectly innocent. But I can see how, if our roles were reversed, I might have you beaten with a pillowcase full of batteries."

ratbastid

I'll add Oscar Peterson. His best known is Night Train--brilliant, blues- and soul-inflected playing that manages to be grand and sweeping and intimate all at once. "Hymn to Freedom" is fucking gorgeous.

roachboy

aberkok: i have listened to alot of evans.
for the type of space he generates, i prefer ran blake or paul bley.
ran blake in particular is a lovely lovely player.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Mr Scorcex

I can add couple to this list:

"Mingus Plays Piano: Spontaneous Compositions and Improvisations" by Charles Mingus is a really great CD. It has some classic piano, and, as the title says, some spontaneous stuff as well. Worth a listen for sure.

Also Chucho Valdes' "Live at the Village Vanguard" is great for some Latin influenced piano jazz, slightly different than classic jazz forms, but still really good.

I do have to say, Roach, that Cecil Taylor is still too far out there for me. I watched 20 minutes of a performance of his for a class and almost walked out. It could just be me, but I really can't condone banging your elbow on the keyboard and calling it music any more than I can say splashing paint on a canvas is fine art. I dig free jazz, just not that free I guess.