Outstanding jazz piano solos, your favorites

[jazzbo]

There are many many outstanding piano solos in jazz recorded history, many overshadowed by other great solos within the same tune or session. (I'm talking about a solo within an ensemble performance rather than a piano performance played unaccompanied). Let's share some of our favorites.

I'll start off by mentioning Wynton Kelly's solo on "Remember," on the Hank Mobley Blue Note album "Soul Station." Like so many of Kelly's solos it shines with swing, precise control, and just the right amount of a bit of "something unexpected" added. Every time I play this album I wait for that solo and it really satisfies. This solo is a great example of why I spent years buying anything if Wynton Kelly appeared somewhere on the recording.

I'm hard-pressed to say what makes this one solo stand out, it's just a personal thing, and I think it has to do with the swing, the groove, and Paul and Art are really contributing here. This one is one of my favorite jazz piano solos.

Edited September 20, 2014 by jazzbo

[Jim R]

Interesting, Lon. I hadn't even thought about it for a long time, but before opening the thread, one of the first things to pop into my head was Wynton Kelly's solo on "Stay As Sweet As You Are" from Sonny Red's "Out Of The Blue".

Good topic. I think I'll wait and see what else flows naturally into my brain...

[Daniel A]

Cedar Walton's solo on 'The Sahdow of your smile' from Eddie Harris' 'The In Sound'. I can sometimes hear it in my head.

[BillF]

The incomplete take of "Parisian Thoroughfare" from The Amazing Bud Powell Vol. 1 is about as good as it gets as far as I'm concerned.

[soulpope]

Milcho Leviev`s solo on "Goodbye" from "Milcho Leviev-Art Pepper Quartet Live @Ronnie Scott`s" (originally released on Mole Jazz, now part of Laurie Pepper`s "Widows`s Taste" reissue) - a haunting performance by the Quartet, but Leviev melancholic still increasingly intense solo takes it to another level - (to me) indispensable.........

[Steve Reynolds]

Cecil Taylor's improvisation on E.B. from The World of Cecil Taylor. I don't know if it can be called a solo - more like the creation of something seemingly impossible.

Shook my world some 20 years ago and again recently when I heard it again for the first time in over 10 years.

[Larry Kart]

Fats Waller, "Handful of Keys”

Luckey Roberts, “ Nothin’”

Herbie Nichols, “House Party Starting”

Sonny Clark, “Cool Struttin’”

Bud Powell, “Crossin' the Channel"

Thelonious Monk, “Little Rootie Tootie”

Dodo Marmarosa, “Bopmatism”

Lennie Tristano, “C Minor Complex”

Bill Evans, “Tenderly”

Earl Hines, “A Monday Date”

Earl Hines, “I Ain’t Got Nobody”

Red Garland, “Mr. Wonderful”

Don Friedman, “Circle Waltz”

... and many more.

[paul secor]

Bud Powell: "It Never Entered My Mind" on Verve

Shattering

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aswPCv7g1g8

[kh1958]

A few would be,

McCoy Tyner, Softly as in a Morning Sunrise (Coltrane at the Village Vanguard);

Bill Evans, On Green Dolphin Street (Miles Davis, Jazz Track),

Lennie Tristano, Turkish Mambo,

Bud Powell, A Night in Tunisia (Jazz at Massey Hall),

Art Tatum, In a Sentimental Mood (Verve/Pablo),

Hampton Hawes, High in the Sky (High in the Sky),

Jaki Byard, Fables of Faubus (Great Concert of Charles Mingus)

Duke Ellington, Sunset and the Mockingbird (Queen's Suite).

Edited September 20, 2014 by kh1958

[big gord]

my favorite,duke ellington stompy jones from side by side album

[Bol]

Sonny Clark's springy intro to "Deep Night" in "Cool Struttin'"

Elmo Hope's cubist breakdown of the theme in "Polkadots & Moonbeams" in "Informal Jazz"

Herbie Hancock on "Autumn Leaves" in Miles Davis's "In Europe"

Bill Charlap's interplay with the bass & drums when they first join him in "Blue Skies" in New York Trio's "Blues in the Night"

Edited September 20, 2014 by Bol

[A Lark Ascending]

Always liked Don Pullen's piano solo on 'For Harry Carney' on one of the Mingus Changes albums.

[xybert]

Bud Powell: "It Never Entered My Mind" on Verve

Shattering

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aswPCv7g1g8

Some random favourites that come to mind:

Herbie Hancock - Prince of Darkness (Sorcerer)

Bill Evans - Re: Person I Knew (Moonbeams)

Chick Corea - Steps/What Was (Now He Sings...)

Jan Hammer w/ Mahavishnu Orchestra - A Lotus on Irish Streams (Inner Mounting Flame)

Andrew Hill - Erato (Pax)

Herbie Nichols - Double Exposure (Blue Note box, not sure of the album)

Ethan Iverson w/ The Bad Plus - You Are (Never Stop)

[JohnS]

Bud Powell: "It Never Entered My Mind" on Verve

Shattering

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aswPCv7g1g8

Yes, there's nothing quite like it.

[Quasimado]

Bud's *Round about Midnight* solo from Bird, Bud & Fats at Birdland.

Q

[Guy Berger]

Herbie Hancock "Circle", "Mappo"

Keith Jarrett, "Inflight"

Duke Ellington, "Cotton Tail" (original recording)

Billy Strayhorn, "Johnny Come Lately"

[Steve Reynolds]

My favorite of the well known piano solos is Monk's intro solo on Well You Needn't before Trane famously is called to enter

[JohnS]

Recently Don Pullen's Ode To Life from Random Thoughts (Blue Note) has been on my cd player a lot.

[mikeweil]

John Lewis's solo on the opening "Django" from the MJQ's European Concert - I still know it by heart.

[A Lark Ascending]

Keith Tippett on either 'Touch Hungary' or 'Jumping' from Harry Miller's Isipingo's disc 'Family Affair. I find it hard to choose. The solos start way before the solo - Tippett is flying around behind the other players long before it gets to his turn (but without stealing the limelight). The piano is way out of tune, sounding like a Western mining town upright but given what he does with it you wouldn't want it any other way. One minute he's vamping along with the basic pulse, then he's airborne with runs of notes that snake up and down the music.

You don't hear Tippett playing in this sort of mid-sized group freebop-ish style very often - there were a flurry of recordings in the late 70s. Usually he is either solo, in very quiet or almost pulse-less small group settings or in more arranged large groups. One of the things that makes this record magical and the two solos priceless.

[Larry Kart]

Sonny Clark on the title track of Louis Smith's "Smithville" (his comping before his solo also is something else):

[Steve Reynolds]

Sonny Clark on the title track of Louis Smith's "Smithville" (his comping before his solo also is something else):

[/quote

Thank you for that, Larry

Every time I listen to Sonny Clark on one if those slow to mid-tempo blues, I am sure no one had an imagination as wild as the great Sonny Clark

That piece was stunning. I had never heard that track or that album before.

[Larry Kart]

Smith is not my favorite trumpeter, nor is Rouse my favorite tenorman, but I find myself playing this track (and others from the album) fairly often. A great day in the studio, and RVG at his best. The way he captures Paul Chambers! In my basement his bass sounds life-sized, as does everyone else in the band. And the way he gets the interaction between Clark's comping and the horn soloists balanced just right.

[Joe]

I'm not a huge Chick Corea fan, but I've always loved the solo he builds on "Y Todavia La Quiero" from Joe Henderson's RELAXIN' AT CAMARILLO.

Amina Claudine Myers plays a helluva [i believe this is the preferred spelling] solo on the title track to Frank Lowe's EXOTIC HEARTBREAK.

Dick Twardzik, "Sad Walk" and "Pomp," Chet Baker's 1955 Paris recordings.

Edited September 24, 2014 by Joe

[JSngry]