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I'm amazed at how much they improved the Black Lion material by Webster, Gordon, Griffin, Konitiz. . .wow.

Puschnig - Scherer - Tacuma: Orca Jazz Fusion (Voices From The Inside Passage). WDCS [Austria 2008]

+ 1, did amazing work with some of those Freedom recordings, especially the Stanley Cowell Brilliant Circles date which was so botched previously.

Joey Defrancesco makes his first appearance in the archive - in fine sound https://aviary.library.vanderbilt.edu/collections/2137/collection_resources/163518 So does Sir Roland Hanna https://aviary.library.vanderbilt.edu/collections/2137/collection_resources/163517

Tizian Jost's claim to fame is that he was the last pianist of Günther Klatt, one of Germany's greatest talents on tenor... here you can see a nice documentary on Klatt, including remembrances by Marty Cook and people from Enja... https://olatv.de/film-serie/film-der-woche-guenther-klatt-maler-und-musiker/

Tizian Jost Trio “United in the Big Blue” Enja/Muzak Japan lp facsimile HQCD I bought this one because it was way cheap and I really like the sound of Muzak mastering of cds . . . and it’s quite a nice piano trio date. 300×300 15.5 KB

Yep.

one of the more surprising things in Iverson's fine post is the claim that Masabumi Kikuchi was only really good after 2000... so much of his work in the 90s is magnificient imho... but there's also awesome stuff from the 60s, especially the 70s, and the 80s... such as this album here

In response to the post above:

The dude could play!

LOL !

I have a copy where someone combined the American 1980s reissue with the beautiful original French cover Btw, regarding Parallel a Stitt, that one looks similar on paper but in fact the large band is only on a few tracks and most of it is a small group with Don Patterson... (Even though it's not their finest collaboration)

I have a couple albums by The 3 Sounds -- but I've never heard that one. I will check it out!

A full list is beyond my capacity but as the former GHF I will always rank this one at or near the top:

Just listening to Sam the Man on some cuts from Cootie Williams' band. Didn't realize he had such an extensive jazz and R&B background before going to Hollywood.

Gee that's a tough order and there are folks here who could do a far better job of it. I play around with piano but am basically a guitar player. Piano is kind of unique in that the two hands can pursue independent musical thoughts. I try to simulate that by moving toward independent bass and treble voices on guitar but under the hood they are necessarily both a combination of the efforts of both hands. I like Fats Waller and wish his stuff would get a better remastering. There's a Centenary Collection (or something) volume where they did a beautiful job remastering. Count Basie as a piano player is a big favorite of mine. He tended to be a little shy as a soloist so it's hard to point to single albums. I have a nice playlist with Basie piano features like Kid from Red Bank. So many great players!

On the contrary, Stompin, I'd love to hear which stride piano albums are essential in your proverbial book. Even if it's just a list of four or five. Focusing on a particular style or time period is just fine. No pressure, of course. I'm just sayin'. An excellent one, for sure!

Too many and hard to decide. I like stride piano a lot, so that calls up a list by itself which I'm sure I needn't enumerate here. One album I often go back to is Dick Hyman, Music of 1937. He frequently plays the tune in several piano styles - Someday My Prince Will Come is a good example - and it's fun to speculate which segment is whose style.

Argh! Abrams is an oversight for sure! I'd likely pick Sightsong, a duet album with Malachi Favors.

I'm not sufficiently erudite to post lists, but some other names I'd consider are: Muhal Richard Abrams Sonny Clark Gene Harris (not the first name that comes to mind, but his Maybeck solo album is great and displays serious chops) Elmo Hope (!!) Masabumi Kikuchi Tete Montoliu Sun Ra Howard Riley Horace Tapscott John Taylor I think your list is excellent, though.

More John Hicks: