Landmark status
This stands with Freedom Book as a landmark of the post-bop era. This quartet was the equal of any other in the world. Don't hesitate, just get it.
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why not booker ervin?
It's a fun (if unreliable) treat to try listening to something one knows nothing about. In this case, I was attracted to the record by the star-spangled cover (I'm an astronomer, after all) and the positive review caught my eye. So I tried _The Space Book_, and was thoroughly surprised and delighted. Why, I wondered, is Booker Ervin not as straight-to-the-tongue name as, say, John Coltrane or Eric Dolphy? I have no answer to that question, but I also don't know why pianist Jaki Byard, who is likewise stellar on this disc, isn't better known. I've relished Byard's playing since hearing him on the great _Great Concert of Charles Mingus_ recording. Anyway, if you like bop hot and sweet, you will find it here. That's all I have to say.
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eMusic Features
Professor Jaki Byard’s Pre-Postmodern Piano
By Kevin Whitehead, eMusic Contributor
When Jaki Byard was with Charles Mingus in the 1960s, audiences would laugh when, mid-solo, Byard would burst into 1920s-style stride piano — the revved-up ragtime offshoot where the left hand bounds back and forth over the lower half of the keyboard. Its archaic quality struck listeners as comic — in that avant-garde age, stride was for antiquarians. Nowadays every hip outside or inside pianist will drop a little stride science once in awhile — like… more »