Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 1982
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 38:38
Size: 89,6 MB
Art: Front
(4:40) 1. Fee Fi Fo Fum
(5:29) 2. Habiba
(5:52) 3. Trinkle Tinkle
(3:51) 4. Moon Ra
(6:18) 5. Fresh Air
(7:05) 6. Wild Flower
(5:20) 7. Never Let Me Go
Kirk Lightsey 1
Year: 1982
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 38:38
Size: 89,6 MB
Art: Front
(4:40) 1. Fee Fi Fo Fum
(5:29) 2. Habiba
(5:52) 3. Trinkle Tinkle
(3:51) 4. Moon Ra
(6:18) 5. Fresh Air
(7:05) 6. Wild Flower
(5:20) 7. Never Let Me Go
Long a top interpreter of modern mainstream jazz, pianist Kirk Lightsey was well recorded by the new Sunnyside label in the early 1980s. This solo date features Lightsey (who plays a little bit of flute on "Fresh Air") playing two originals, a pair of songs by Wayne Shorter (including "Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum"), Thelonious Monk's tricky "Trinkle Tinkle," an obscurity, and "Never Let Me Go." The pianist is in top form throughout the well-paced program. ~ Scott Yanow http://www.allmusic.com/album/lightsey-1-mw0000109671
Personnel: Kirk Lightsey (piano).
Personnel: Kirk Lightsey (piano).
Kirk Lightsey 1
I commented on another Kirk Lightsey posting a week or ten days ago that, back in the 80s, I used to hear Kirk fairly regularly at long gone but forever to be remembered Bradley’s on University Place in NYC and, as more and more Kirk Lightsey albums have been posted here on Silky Ds since then, I have inevitably been thinking about that casually profound now long ago experience and, in particular, of how Bradley’s provided really the perfect venue for a certain jazz style of which Kirk was one of the great and distinguished practitioners. Bradley’s was not a show room. It was nothing like The Village Vanguard or The Blue Note, where people paid admission to get in and then sat in reverent or at least respectful silence (or something approaching silence) for the length of a show. Honestly, I don’t even remember a cover charge at Bradley’s; if there was one, it was nominal. Bradley’s was a neighborhood joint, though, to be sure, in one of the world’s great neighborhoods. The room was awkwardly long and narrow, and small. There were tables in the back – probably not more than a dozen of them – for diners, and there was a decent but not overwrought menu. There was a long bar in the front, and the piano was kind of sandwiched in where you turned to get from the alleyway behind the stools on the customers’ side of the bar in the direction of the booths (I do think they were booths) and the toilets. The piano wasn’t up on a stage or anything, either. It was just there on the floor, and there was only the most minimal room for other performers. Bradley’s had its pick-up bar side, it was also a place where the walking wounded of Lower Manhattan went and stared zombie-like into space over their double scotches and double bourbons. Except on Friday and Saturday evenings, it wasn’t just neighborhoody, it was intimate. That’s what was so great about it. It lent itself to jazz – like Kirk’s – that was elegant and understated. The blurb writer for one of the KL postings here observed that Kirk has always been underrated. This is so. But there is a reason. He played a jazz that was companionable and contemplative. It was not background music by any means, but it was also not exhibitionistic. It would be fun to write out the honor roll of the dozens of other great musicians who came and went at Bradley’s, but I am feeling that this moment here at Silky Denims is Kirk’s and Kirk’s alone. He deserves the extended solo. Thanks again, Giullia. I don’t know how you do it. I don’t know how Beaumarchais over in Malagá, Spain does it on his incredibly rich classical music Frenopáticos. But it’s amazing. I for one am deeply indebted.
ReplyDeleteHey Mark, I'm glad you liked!
ReplyDeleteBest always,