Peter Friedman

Piano Concertos No.5 & No.7

Beethoven - String Quartet Op.18/4 and Schubert - Piano Sonata D.958

Spohr - Concerto for String Quartet & Orchestra Op.131

I tend to be suspicious of albums of all originals unless the tunes are by someone with a solid track record (pun intended). As Ken said, many original tunes tend to be forgettable (or boring). I had a very good friend who passed away a couple of years ago. He was a fine jazz pianist. On more than one occasion he said to me that only a limited number of people have the music writer gene.

Schubert Piano Quintet "Trout"

In my view, Norman Granz gets a bad rap from those who tell us they could have done a better job in producing jazz recordings. Where were they then? When I look at my very large collection of Clef, Norgran, Verve, and Pablo recordings I see an extremely large number of outstanding records that I would not want to be without. The fact that Granz offered opportunities for many musicians who were being overlooked in favor of the latest jazz styles is by itself worthy of major credit. When I consider the lengthy list of wonderful jazz musicians he recorded,(and the financial benefit that provided for them), it is quite amazing. I won't list the musicians here as it would likely be so long as to become close to a history of jazz. If I was consider the jazz record producers who have been most important over the past roughly 80 years, Norman Granz would certainly be among the top 3 or 4. The readily identifiable Pablo album covers are fine with me. Maybe not the most artistic, but easy to pick out in the record bins as a Pablo recording and therefore one I was likely to want to buy.

Don Friedman Trio

Beethoven - Piano Trio Op.70 "Ghost" and Mozart - Piano Concerto No.23, K.488

In Copenhagen - Harry "Sweets" Edison & Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis with Kenny Drew (P), Hugo Rasmussen (b), drummer ?

Haydn - String Quartet Op.64/5 "Lark" and Dvorak - Symphony No.9 "New World"