Michael Ullman
As usual with Craft Recordings reissues, these lps are impeccably produced: the silence of the recording before the music starts is almost startling, but it’s the clear sound of what follows that is most impressive.
The album seems to me to be about spotlighting the ensemble’s sound rather than the virtuoso displays of its leader.
This collector is happy to have Luis Russell: At the Swing Cats Ball with all its faults.
The last time Kenny Barron recorded solo was in 1981. That, besides the quality of the music, is a reason to treasure this album.
The smallish Friend Recital Hall was an ideal setting for pianist Laszlo Gardony to impose his engaging personality, as well as his musical versatility and power.
The music comes out of an extended personal crisis; the compositions found here are a testament to a musician regaining his voice.
The advantage to listening to the recorded Unstuck in Time: The Kurt Vonnegut Suite is that on disc pianist Jason Yeager writes beautifully for septet: the textures he evokes in his arrangements are curiously varied and invariably moving.
Vince Guaraldi isn’t the heaviest of jazz pianists: he played at a time when McCoy Tyner and Bill Evans were omnipresent. But his tunes, his gently humanist approach to music, meant that he reached listeners that others couldn’t or didn’t.
Given Keith Jarrett’s current disability, this new ECM recording is an unexpected gift to his fans.
The sound of both musicians is indelible: trumpeter Enrico Rava is warm and rounded; pianist Fred Hersch, often icy, is fetching and detailed.
Arts Commentary: The Orchestra Gap — Europe vs. the US