Herbie Nichols - The Art of Herbie Nichols

Styles: Piano Jazz

Year: 1992

File: MP3@320K/s

Time: 65:05

Size: 149,6 MB

Art: Front

(4:12)  1. The Third World

(5:13)  2. Step Tempest

(4:23)  3. Blue Chopsticks

(4:43)  4. Cro-Magnon Nights

(4:44)  5. 2300 Skiddoo

(4:12)  6. Shuffle Montgomery

(4:23)  7. The Gig

(4:00)  8. Hangover Triangle

(4:24)  9. Lady Sings the Blues

(5:38) 10. House Party Starting

(6:04) 11. Sunday Stroll

(3:59) 12. Terpsichore

(4:11) 13. Riff Primitif

(4:53) 14. The Spinning Song

Herbie Nichols spent most of his career toiling away in dixieland bands, rarely allowed the privilege of performing his own unique compositions, except on a 1953 10" for Savoy and a 1957 session for Bethlehem. In between, though, in 1955-1956, he got to do five sessions for Alfred Lion's Blue Note label, producing some of the greatest piano trios in the history of jazz from which The Art Of Herbie Nichols is assembled. Nichols' tunes are rich in rhythmic variety and percussive breaks, and the performances he elicits from drum legends Art Blakey and Max Roach are among their greatest, rivalling their work with Thelonious Monk the pianist Nichols is most often compared to. But where Monk's playing has a bluesy, guitar-like texture and attack, Nichols has a more loping pianistic gait, and a harmonic pallete that can suggest Bartok, Jelly Roll Morton and Art Tatum in a single chorus.

Nichols's tunes range from slow bluesy strolls like "Spinning Song" and "Lady Sings The Blues" (written for Billie Holiday, his most famous tune), to galloping harmonic romps like "The Gig." Nichols' playing is completely original and devoid of pianistic cliches, and while his use of chords often suggests polytonal ambivalence, his harmonic juxtapositions and resolutions are triumphantly tuneful. The manner in which he continually extends his melodic lines and precipitates polyhryhmic exchanges with his drummers keeps tensions at a constant boiling point, and makes for some of most swinging music in the history of jazz. In many ways, his work anticipates the explorations of modernists like Herbie Hancock, Cecil Taylor, Andrew Hill and Gerri Allen, and once you've heard his playing, it's hard to imagine how his joyous original slipped between the cracks, barely making a blip on the radar screen of history before passing away from leukemia in the early '60s at the age of 42. http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=4766790&style=music&fulldesc=T

Personnel: Herbie Nichols (piano), Al McKibbon, Teddy Kotick (bass), Art Blakey, Max Roach (drums).

The Art of Herbie Nichols

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