Overlooked pianists

[JSngry]

Bobby Few

[HutchFan]

Russ Lossing

[clifford_thornton]

Bobby Few

Indeed.

Heikki Sarmanto is another.

[Steve Reynolds]

Steve - Your mention of Kris Davis made me think of Angelica Sanchez.  I've really enjoyed her music, and I don't think she's particularly well-known.

going to see her this Saturday night with Michael Formanek & Tyshawn Sorey. New trio for her. I've seen her numerous times and she is a wonderful melodist. A highlight was a trio with Mat   Maneri and Tyshawn. Very fine. 

She has a week at The Stone early next year and there are many interesting combinations.

[Larry Kart]

Steve - Your mention of Kris Davis made me think of Angelica Sanchez.  I've really enjoyed her music, and I don't think she's particularly well-known.

going to see her this Saturday night with Michael Formanek & Tyshawn Sorey. New trio for her. I've seen her numerous times and she is a wonderful melodist. A highlight was a trio with Mat   Maneri and Tyshawn. Very fine. 

She has a week at The Stone early next year and there are many interesting combinations.

She is special.

[jlhoots]

Steve - Your mention of Kris Davis made me think of Angelica Sanchez.  I've really enjoyed her music, and I don't think she's particularly well-known.

going to see her this Saturday night with Michael Formanek & Tyshawn Sorey. New trio for her. I've seen her numerous times and she is a wonderful melodist. A highlight was a trio with Mat   Maneri and Tyshawn. Very fine. 

She has a week at The Stone early next year and there are many interesting combinations.

She is special.

I like both Kris Davis & Angelica Sanchez - leader dates & side person albums.

[JSngry]

Who among us really knows about Call Cobbs?

[jeffcrom]

Who among us really knows about Call Cobbs?

Well, yeah. But I've got this 78 on the Tops label. Tops' deal was to issue two full tunes on a side. In the 40s they spaced the grooves of their 78s tightly (I now play them with a microgroove stylus), and in the 50s put out both 78s and 45s. In the 50s they seemed to specialize in "no name" artists covering early rock and roll hits, but in the 40s some of their 78s were drawn from the Black & White catalog.

So I've got a couple of those Black & White-derived Tops 78s. Tops R 1005 is pretty great; it has tracks by Sammy Franklin and His Atomics, the "modern" big bands of Gerald Wilson and Wilbert Baranco, and "Mad Boogie" by Jack McVea, from 1946. The tough boogie piano on the McVea track is by Call Cobbs.

So I dont "know" Call Cobbs better than anyone else, but I love hearing this early recording by the guy who played "Zion Hill" with Albert Ayler. He also recorded in the 50s with Johnny Hodges, as you probably know.

The Wilbert Baranco track has solos by Vic Dickenson and Lucky Thompson. But the very interesting Baranco band is a topic for another thread, I guess.

[JSngry]

Wikipedia says that he served as Ayler's copyist and musical director. So, I wonder if somewhere exists the paper from all that. Might be an interesting, perhaps even instructive, look.

He was also killed by a hit-and-run driver less than a year after Ayler was pulled from the river, so conspiracy theorists rejoice!

[Hardbopjazz]

How about Frank Paparelli? He worked with Dizzy in the 40s and co-wrote A Night In Tunisia.

[Big Beat Steve]

Coincidence, but similar name:

 

How about Frank Strazzeri?

Would he qualify? At least his earlier works and activity?

For a time,  when listening to hard bop/post-bop pianists during the 80s/early 90s and their typical comping and soloing and their typical devices (Michel Petrucciani was one of them, from what I have hard of him in concert broadcasts, for example),  I always had had the feeling "Hey, you've heard many of those licks and tricks and elements before" but never could put my finger on it. Then, one day, when listening to the Land/Mitchell LP "Hear Ye!", there it came together - Frank Strazzeri and his piano playing on that album: One of the typical blueprints for what many of the hard bop/post-bop pianists of 20-30 years later were still doing.

[Larry Kart]

I have several excellent Strazzeri piano trio CDs. FWIW, he was Elvis' favorite Vegas accompanist.

http://www.amazon.com/Franks-Blues-Frank-Strazzeri/dp/B000000I89/ref=sr_1_12?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1441391086&sr=1-12&keywords=frank+strazzeri

http://www.amazon.com/Kat-Dancin-Frank-Strazzeri/dp/B000WB0DWC/ref=sr_1_16?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1441391170&sr=1-16&keywords=frank+strazzeri 

 

And at least one other  album that I can't find a link to right now. Don't know about his playing being a blueprint for later players, though. Seems to me that he was an inventive personal offshoot of somewhat earlier hardbop mainstays -- e.g. Elmo Hope, Sonny Clark, Horace Silver to some degree,  et al. -- and it was through such more well-known figures rather than Strazzeri that those  pianistic devices entered the jazz mainstream.

Edited September 4, 2015 by Larry Kart

[Big Beat Steve]

 

 Don't know about his playing being a blueprint for later players, though. Seems to me that he was an inventive personal offshoot of somewhat earlier hardbop mainstays -- e.g. Elmo Hope, Sonny Clark, Horace Silver to some degree,  et al. -- and it was through such more well-known figures rather than Strazzeri that those  pianistic devices entered the jazz mainstream.

I wouldn't doubt that. No doubt the earlier hardbop pianists you mention had an influence on him (haven't listened intensely enough to all of those in recent times and have just a fair smattering of their records, and will have to pull them out again to let them "sink in"). It just was that TO ME his playing on that particular LP immediately sounded like it predated what many others from the later "piano mainstream" that i had heard seemed to have borrowed from. Of course it may just as well have been just ONE typical product of that period that fed what you call the mainstream. But it did make me sit up and take note of that name which otherwise I had only come across in his much later recordings where AFAIK he was much more prolific with leader dates.

 

Edited September 4, 2015 by Big Beat Steve

[paul secor]

I have several excellent Strazzeri piano trio CDs. FWIW, he was Elvis' favorite Vegas accompanist.

http://www.amazon.com/Franks-Blues-Frank-Strazzeri/dp/B000000I89/ref=sr_1_12?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1441391086&sr=1-12&keywords=frank+strazzeri

http://www.amazon.com/Kat-Dancin-Frank-Strazzeri/dp/B000WB0DWC/ref=sr_1_16?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1441391170&sr=1-16&keywords=frank+strazzeri 

 

And at least one other  album that I can't find a link to right now. Don't know about his playing being a blueprint for later players, though. Seems to me that he was an inventive personal offshoot of somewhat earlier hardbop mainstays -- e.g. Elmo Hope, Sonny Clark, Horace Silver to some degree,  et al. -- and it was through such more well-known figures rather than Strazzeri that those  pianistic devices entered the jazz mainstream.

Frank Strazzeri & Bill Perkins:

 

[srellek]

I would second some of those already mentioned: Jimmy Rowles, Alan Broadbent, and Ran Blake. And I'll add a younger cat whose playing has really captivated my listening lately: Craig Taborn.

His first records were with James Carter and some may have heard him with Chris Potter and Dave Holland's Prism group. He also plays on a fantastic record by guitarist Jakob Bro, December Song, with Lee Konitz and Bill Frisell. And his dates as a leader, from the wonderful, electronic-y Junk Magic to his more recent trio records -- and especially his solo disc on ECM -- are always engaging and enjoyable.

Like Blake, he is a true tone scientist, seeming to be concerned with sounds and shapes, more than "music" and notes. Check out this clip, especially starting about the 12:00 mark (and be advised the audio/video hisses out after about a half hour). Hope to see him live in the near future.

Edited September 5, 2015 by srellek

[clifford_thornton]

Taborn is excellent.

[A Lark Ascending]

Andrea Keller - Australian jazz pianist. Overlooked because she's part of a jazz scene that doesn't get much attention beyond its own region of the world.

I can't comment on her pianistic skills but I've enjoyed a string of excellent records, mainly originals though including some standards and a Wayne Shorter disc. I'm especially fond of this one:

Built round Bartok's music.

 http://www.andreakellerpiano.com.au/

 

[Hardbopjazz]

How about James Williams? Was he mentioned in this discussion? I like the work he did with the Messengers in the 70s and 80s.

[Simon Weil]

Wikipedia says that he served as Ayler's copyist and musical director. So, I wonder if somewhere exists the paper from all that. Might be an interesting, perhaps even instructive, look.

He was also killed by a hit-and-run driver less than a year after Ayler was pulled from the river, so conspiracy theorists rejoice!

 

 

Well, the reference is to Jeff Schwartz's online  Ayler biog. and he quotes Val Wilmer:

"Call Cobbs: We heard some of the critics say he was beginning to get a bit too conventional, but then it was selling and they [Impulse] liked that. He didn't want to sing but he started to on New Grass because his friend Mary Maria suggested it. She had written some lyrics to tunes, so they sang something together and asked me how does it sound. I said it sounds good and it was original, and so I wrote the music out for him (Wilmer 1971)."

So I guess that's like saying Call Cobbs transcribed some of the very late, kind of conventional, Ayler stuff. Presumably because Ayler didn't have the ability. I'm not sure that really helps you get at what made his earlier music tick. I mean a lot of it is based on sound and would resist the sort of standard transcription that I imagine Cobbs was trained in.

Edited September 6, 2015 by Simon Weil

[JSngry]

Right, but...he was in Ayler's world before the impulse! period as well....I wonder if he would have written any sketches out for Ayler to use with his working bands, or for copyright purposes.

That stuff is indeed based on sounds, but there's pitches in nearly all the heads, starting & arrival pitches. It can be transcribed using standard pitch and less standard rhythmic notation. Not sure what call (no pun intended) there would have been for that type of thing, though.

Has anybody looked at Ayler's LOC copyright submissions? Are there any?

[fasstrack]

Don't know if anyone mentioned him, but Richard Wyands.

[Larry Kart]

Don't know if anyone mentioned him, but Richard Wyands.

Yes, indeed

[njtw]

Milcho Leviev

Larry Willis

George Arvanitas

Peter Beets

Rob Franken

[Cyril]

Peter Beets? Come on. He is one of the most recognized young piano giants of our time. He is praised worldwide, while his creativity keeps increasing...

[xybert]

FWIW i'd never heard of Peter Beets (apologies in advance if people have posted about him here and it hasn't registered... sometimes things go in one eye and out the other).

Interesting that George Arvanitas got mentioned. I just happened to pull out my copy of The New Thing and the Blue Thing last night to see who was on piano and was like 'huh, that's a name i'm not familiar with.'