The Jaki Byard Experience

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Album Information
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Total Tracks: 6   Total Length: 35:59

eMusic Features

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Fred Hersch: The Lives of a Cat

By Kevin Whitehead, eMusic Contributor

The pianist heard on the newly released 2001 solo recital Fred Hersch Plays Jobim may be the best-known Fred Hersch: a consummate player of lyrical ballads, enriching their melodies and chords in subtle ways. He's a master of singing right-hand lines and impressionist harmonies that recede into the distance. Antonio Carlos Jobim composed classics like "Desafinado," "Corcovado" and "Insensatez" which helped make bossa nova a '60s fad, when he teamed up with saxophonist Stan Getz.… more »

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Ran Blake: the New Englandest New Englander

By Kevin Whitehead, eMusic Contributor

Ran Blake is one mysterioso pianist. His playing smacks of deep, complicated feelings, like melancholy, or nostalgia, where painful longing and sweet remembrance mix. His right hand - could be one finger - might hammer out a melody like a brass bell, choosing notes with a poet's care, while his left hand plumbs the depths, with low dissonant chords made all the more ambiguous via subtle foot pedaling. Other pianists abuse the sustain pedal for… more »

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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 »

They Say All Music Guide

Pianist Jaki Byard and the wondrous Roland Kirk (here switching between tenor, clarinet, and manzello) were two of the few jazz musicians who could play in literally every jazz style, from New Orleans to bop and free form. If only they had recorded a history-of-jazz album. Fortunately, they did meet up on a few occasions, including this brilliant quartet session with bassist Richard Davis and drummer Alan Dawson. They romp on Bud Powell’s “Parisian Thoroughfare,” Thelonious Monk’s “Evidence,” “Shine on Me,” and “Teach Me Tonight.” Byard duets with Davis on his own “Hazy Eve,” but best of all is the pianist’s duet with Kirk on “Memories of You.” This set was also reissued as half of the Roland Kirk two-LP set Pre-Rahsaan. – Scott Yanow

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