Michel Petrucciani - Essentials

[TranesHuman]

I've been wearing out Miller/Petrucciani/Lagrene/White/Garrett - Dreyfus Night In Paris. I'm not very familar with Michel Petrucciani, but he blew me away on this album. Does anyone have any recommendations for future Petrucciani purchases?

[sal]

He plays very well on Joe Lovano's "From The Soul", which is a fantastic album overall.

[Nate Dorward]

Hm, I'd thought the Dreyfus night disc was nice enough, but not outstanding. Anyway, for Petrucciani, a good start would be the live date at the Village Vanguard, I think simply called Live at the Village Vanguard, recorded for Concord in the early 1980s. The Lovano disc is a superb disc, though it's not very typical of Petrucciani's work elsewhere.

[TranesHuman]

Let me confess that I've only been listening to jazz for about three years, so I'm probably easy to impress and certainly no expert. I bought the Dreyfuss album primarily because I like Kenny Garrett and my buddy, who helped get me hooked on jazz, has been recommending Petrucciani to me for some time. I really like the tune, "Tutu," as well.

[Free For All]

Greetings, TranesHuman and welcome to the board! I'd be interested to hear the story behind your choice of screen name, if there is one.

Regarding Michel Petrucciani, I did enjoy the new Dreyfus recording. A nice all-star lineup that plays well. I would say, however, that this CD is not really stylistically indicative of the bulk of MP's output. I like his solo and trio recordings best- to me they are reminiscent of Bill Evans w/o being overly derivative. I saw him perform once- a very fragile-looking small person who could roar like a lion. I wish he was still around.

Some of his other recordings I particularly enjoy-

Power of Three w/Jim Hall and Wayne Shorter (unfortunately this is out of print so you might have to search a bit for it- worth the trouble, IMHO)

A couple solo piano sides I really like (that are in print):

100 Hearts (Blue Note)

Michel Petrucciani Solo Live (Dreyfus)

[TranesHuman]

John Coltrane is my favorite artists and he was one of the artists who got me hooked on jazz. (Jimmy Smith was another.) About two years ago, a black and white cat showed up at the homeless shelter where I work and I took him in. I thought John's nickname made a wonderful name for him (Sylvester would have been too easy), so Trane is my cat and I'm his human. It has turned out to be a fitting name. I can't let him outside because he has feline luekemia so when he gets pent up energy, he runs through my apartment like a force of nature and that's how I would best describe Coltrane's playing. My Trane is one hip cat. Literally.

[marcoliv]

i would recommend

Trio In Tokyo (Dreyfus)

Live At The Village Vanguard (Blue Note)

Marcus Oliveira

[Free For All]

John Coltrane is my favorite artists and he was one of the artists who got me hooked on jazz. (Jimmy Smith was another.)  About two years ago, a black and white cat showed up at the homeless shelter where I work and I took him in.  I thought John's nickname made a wonderful name for him (Sylvester would have been too easy), so Trane is my cat and I'm his human.  It has turned out to be a fitting name.  I can't let him outside because he has feline luekemia so when he gets pent up energy, he runs through my apartment like a force of nature and that's how I would best describe Coltrane's playing.  My Trane is one hip cat.  Literally.

[Nate Dorward]

Yeah, the Dreyfus night is OK--just not really very typical of Petrucciani's work. Here's what I wrote about it a couple months back:

Pianist Michel Petrucciani’s cruelly early death in 1999 makes every posthumous addition to his catalog valuable. On July 7th, 1994, he was master of ceremonies for a Franco-American supergroup performance at Paris’s Palais des Sports. This previously unreleased recording of the event is blemished by a few bad off-mike moments, but is otherwise quite acceptable. Few of the musicians had even played with each other before, and the band basically gets up and blows; yet as jam sessions go it’s pretty good and surprisingly disciplined. Marcus Miller is the dominant voice, and the concert ends up as something of a memorial to his (and Garrett’s) old boss Miles Davis. It begins with a reading of “Tutu,” the piece Miller penned for Miles’ first Warner Brothers album, and continues with Miller’s “The King Is Gone” – surely in memoriam Miles? Miller’s bass-clarinet lament introduction to the piece is genuinely affecting, and all five musicians feature strongly on the track’s central 16-bar blues. The concert closes with Petrucciani’s “Looking Up,” which is (as the title indicates) slightly one-dimensionally cheerful, but the piece is again the occasion for excellent solo work from all concerned. Throughout the album the musicians are judicious in their displays of virtuosity, which makes this much less wearing than most festival supergroup recordings. No-one would claim this disc as a major discovery, but it’s an enjoyable footnote to the discographies of these five musicians.

Yeah I wish Petrucciani were still around--he was a fun player.

[paul secor]

The only Petrucciani in my collection is the duo album he recorded with Lee Konitz on Owl. I'll have to put that on the turntable and give it a relisten soon. That's one of the great things about this board - not only am I introduced to new things, I'm also reintroduced to my record collection.

[neveronfriday]

John Coltrane is my favorite artists and he was one of the artists who got me hooked on jazz. (Jimmy Smith was another.) About two years ago, a black and white cat showed up at the homeless shelter where I work and I took him in. I thought John's nickname made a wonderful name for him (Sylvester would have been too easy), so Trane is my cat and I'm his human. It has turned out to be a fitting name. I can't let him outside because he has feline luekemia so when he gets pent up energy, he runs through my apartment like a force of nature and that's how I would best describe Coltrane's playing. My Trane is one hip cat. Literally.

Welcome to the board.

Cats and Coltrane.

You find yourself in good company.

Cheers!

[Bright Moments]

The only Petrucciani in my collection is the duo album he recorded with Lee Konitz on Owl. I'll have to put that on the turntable and give it a relisten soon. That's one of the great things about this board - not only am I introduced to new things, I'm also reintroduced to my record collection.

this one is quite good! B)

[Joe G]

Another vote for Power of Three. That's a great Jim Hall outing as well.

[Bright Moments]

just spun power of three again. DANG that a good one!!!!

[randyhersom]

I believe there's a Tommy Flanagan date called The Cats that also features Trane (the human).

[aparxa]

A long time I did not listen to this album, but I really enjoyed one of his solo album "Promenade with Duke", revisiting Ellington's standards.