Jazz Piano Solos

Carnegie Hall Bounce, Gang O' Nothin', Jumpin' for Sumpin', Live Jive, Night Scene.

Mike Nock - Piano Solos (1978) {2015 Japan Timeless Jazz Master Collection Complete Series}
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© 1978, 2015 Timeless Records / Solid Records Japan / Ultra-Vibe | CDSOL-6415
Jazz / Post Bop / Neo Bop / Piano

Reissue with the latest remastering and the original cover artwork. Comes with a description written in Japanese. Beautiful solo work from pianist Mike Nock – a set that's got some of the dark edges and dynamic energy of Nock's previous 70s recordings – but an album that also shows some newly lyrical elements as well! Some passages have Mike hitting the keys with the sort of frenzied creation he reached on fusion recordings – but with wonderful results on the acoustic piano – and other moments have this enhanced sense of melody that makes for very beautiful, expressive passages – maybe a touch more sentiment than the younger Nock would have allowed himself, but never in a way that's soppy or overdone. The balance in these modes is great – and reminds us that Nock can be equally compelling a solo performer as he is in a group – on titles that include "Enchanted Garden", "Polyhedron", "Fallen Angel", "California Country Song", "Soliloquy", and "Jacanori".

Alexey Zuev has a very special relationship with Stravinsky’s music. From the age of seven, it entered his musical universe like a premonition, when he unknowingly ‘composed’ a piece that bore astonishing similarities to Petrushka. Five years later, he discovered the ‘real’ Stravinsky and his music never left him.

Teddy Wilson - The Complete Piano Solos 1934-1941 (1991) {2CD Set Columbia COL 467690 2}
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© 1934-41, 1991 Columbia / Sony Music | COL 467690 2
Jazz / Swing / Piano

Wilson was born in Austin, Texas, on November 24, 1912. He studied piano and violin at Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama. After working in the Lawrence "Speed" Webb band, with Louis Armstrong, and also understudying Earl Hines in Hines's Grand Terrace Cafe Orchestra, Wilson joined Benny Carter's Chocolate Dandies in 1933. In 1935, he joined the Benny Goodman Trio (which consisted of Goodman, Wilson and drummer Gene Krupa, later expanded to the Benny Goodman Quartet with the addition of Lionel Hampton).

Art Tatum: The Art of Jazz Piano is still the only documentary portrait of the greatest jazz pianist ever. Using photographs and some rare footage of Tatum and his contemporaries, the film reconstructs his genius. Included are interviews with musicians who played with him or who were influenced strongly by him, including Guitarists Tiny Grimes and Les Paul, and pianists Marian McPartland, Hank Jones, Dick Hyman, and George Shearing. Their reminiscences and demonstrations underline Tatum's stutus as the "musician's musician."

This is the one Willie "the Lion" Smith CD to get. The bulk of the release features Smith on 14 piano solos from January 10, 1939, performing six standards and eight of his finest compositions. Although Smith (with his derby hat and cigar) could look quite tough, he was actually a sensitive player whose chord structures were very original and impressionistic. On such numbers as "Echoes of Spring" (his most famous work), "Passionette," "Rippling Waters," and "Morning Air," Smith was at his most expressive. In addition, this CD has a couple of collaborations with fellow pianists Joe Bushkin and Jess Stacy and a four-song 1940 swing/Dixieland 1940 session with an octet featuring trumpeter Sidney DeParis. Because of the classic piano solos, this memorable set is quite essential.