Simon8

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On Bandcamp: ▶︎ Four Into Four | Billy Lester "Pianist Billy Lester is a late-bloomer on that reticent branch of the jazz tree, the school of Lennie Tristano." 😅 Fun, invigorating album (w/ Simon Wettenhall on trumpet).

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Spurred by Mark Stryker's desert island list: Desert Island List no. 3: BLUE NOTE RECORDS

(Inspired by Mark Stryker's Prestige records desert island list: Desert Island List no. 1: PRESTIGE RECORDS)

Some of the most emphatic block chords on record 😅!

(There's a big band show every Tuesday night at a local jazz club here in Montreal: they started the second set with the Gil Evans arrangement of "St. Louis Blues", then played a few from "The Indivudualism of G.E." - "Las Vegas Tango" and "Spoonful". Sounded great)

I'm all for enthusiastic endorsement, so thank you Allen (and welcome back!): I was sufficiently impressed to listen to most of the rest of that 2023 showcase (when he was all of 18, if I'm not mistaken). With that two-handed wizardry and those supersonic typewriter lines, Phineas Newborn jumped to my mind (he'll probably get the same "soulless technician/speed demon" critics, with some good and some bad reasons). He can be really inventive. I liked his interpretation of Bud's "Celia" and "Monk's Dream", as well as two of originals, I think ("Rose-Colored Paradise" and "Chorale"). An impressive solo "Inner Urge" as well.

👍👍 (love that record)

Very much enjoyed this 1987 live rendition of "Feed The Fire" (with Ralphe Armstrong and Lenny White)

This recent release (fall 2025) was discussed on another thread : (That's vol. 4: I see that the same band released the first three "Tristano Project" 20 years ago (!). I like that one). The excellent, young-ish Spanish pianist Marta Sanchez also has a Tristano filiation: Memories of Connie Crothers (by Marta Sanchez) | DO THE M@TH

Listening to this album mentioned here on page 1: Quite interesting quartet (live) album, with trumpet as the sole horn.

I I also followed that NYT recommendation, but quickly abandoned (those tedious dialogues...). Too bad, because I really loved one of his previous novels, "Measuring the World" (in which he uses the same historical reinterpretation approach).