Peter Friedman

Sacconi Quartet - Haydn Op.54

Brentano String Quartet - Mozart String Quartet K.464 & String Quintet K.593

This is a wonderful album. Hard to understand why Dick Katz recorded so few albums under his own name. This is his only actual trio session. His playing reminds me a bit of Jimmy Rowles, and perhaps to a lesser extent John Lewis. It is a bit sparse with a number sometimes space between phrases. The focus is not on technique, but on telling a musical story. That suggests he had something in common with Lester Young.

Nat King Cole - Where Did Everyone Go?

There seems to be numerous highly positive comments here and on other threads about Red Garland. Personally I have a large number of Red's albums and do enjoy them. However, for some reason his playing has never reached me the way many many other jazz pianists have been able to do. It may be that I hear a lightness and lack of depth (a hard to define quality) in his playing. Garland's recordings are perfect background music while eating dinner or working at my desk paying bills. But when I want to sit down and do some serious listening, Red's albums would not be a top level choice. There was a time when I was not able to understand why Red Garland was picked to be the piano player in the Miles Davis Quintet. There were a lot of jazz piano players that I would have preferred to hear in that quintet. But over a number of years I did come to appreciate the way Red's light touch was a balance to the hard hitting from Coltrane, Philly Joe and Miles.

Bresna, I am with you on this issue. The number of fine jazz musicians over the years who emulated others is very lengthy. There was a time when a long list of alto players were accused of being too much under the spell of Charlie Parker. Similar accusations were aimed at Paul Quinichette for sounding too much like Lester Young. And the list goes on and on. By the way, if you listen to a variety of Eric Alexander's recordings you can hear a wide range of influences from George Coleman, John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon and others. Yet he does not sound at all like any one of them. In fact his influences are far less dominant than the single Pres influence on Quinichette.