A couple thoughts re the Stephen Cerra interview that Elmo quotes:
1. How much did Ike Quebec influence the choices of whom Blue Note recorded as leader and sidemen in the 1950s? Blue Note recorded a lot more junkies during his a&r era than his successor Duke Pearson picked for 1960s sessions, and Nichols in his Blue Note heyday was shamefully clean.
2. On the basis of the one sideman recording I know, 2 tunes with a Joe Thomas group on Atlantic, Nichols was very bland pianist. His 1952 trio pieces with Chocolate Williams are better and this time show Nichols to be an eclectic, a player of several different styles including bits here and there that predict his BN and Bethlehem dates. It's those 1955-57 recordings of mostly his original songs with their unique changes and developments that show what a great original artist he was. He interpreted, embellished, varied his compositions more than he improvised on their changes in the bop sense. Much as I appreciate how Rudd and Kimbrough played some of the Nichols songs that Herbie himself never got to record, I wish that a Nichols-influenced pianist had recorded those pieces -- dammit, those are PIANO compositions, much as other instrumentalists like them. Simon Nabatov, bless him, is the one who came closest to the Nichols style. That was in a wonderful evening at the Hungry Brain club in Chicago as well as on his CD of familiar Nichols songs.