After hearing a couple of shows in which I talked about jazz pianist Bill Evans, somebody asked me the other day who my favorite jazz pianists are, and what albums I’d recommend if they were looking for something new to listen to. What a great question. And what a great New Year’s resolution if you’re still looking for one. Discovering new art is an infinitely rewarding undertaking for a new year.
I thought about it a while and came up with five favorite players and the albums I would recommend from each one. A lot of these people released albums as band leaders, but those albums are full of other players, so what I’m going to recommend here will be an album from a particular player in which the piano is front and center. The biggest combo I’ll recommend is a piano trio.
At the top of my list of jazz pianists is Thelonious Monk. The album I would recommend for you is his Thelonious Alone in San Francisco record. It was recorded on October 21 and 22, 1959 at a place in San Francisco that’s now called Club Fugazi but was then a small auditorium called Fugazi Hall.
There was no audience, so it’s not what you’d think of as a live album. It was just him sitting down at a piano on the stage. The sound is perfect, crisp and clear. His playing is light and relaxed and just a little out there. Two of the songs are improvised blues that he never recorded again. See if you can guess which ones just by listening.
The second one I’ll recommend to you is an album by Keith Jarrett and his trio called After the Fall. It was recorded live at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark on November 14, 1998, and playing with him are bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette. It was Jarrett’s first live performance in two years.
I’ve written before about Keith Jarrett’s incredible improvised solo piano concerts but this isn’t that. These are mostly jazz standards along with compositions from people like Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and Bud Powell. The piano takes the lead here and the bass and drums play supporting roles. On most of the tunes the bass player and the drummer also take solos with Jarrett playfully comping behind them. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable record and a good introduction to what a jazz piano trio can do.
We’ll get around to my other recommendations later.