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David Sudnow talked about finding a “hero” – the piano player you would most like to emulate. For me, these are players such as Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett, very different players and styles, but both improvisational. Another player I really enjoy is not jazz oriented, but instead a cocktail piano player, Jim Haskins. He has 20 CDs available, all solo cocktail style piano spanning the standards and some choice music from the 1970s that could easily pass as “standards”.
Even if you are not really interested in Jim Haskins’ playing, he has a complete list of all the tunes he plays across all his CDs. That list represents a fine list of tunes to voice according to the Sudnow method. You can find it here:
http://cocktailpiano.com/record.html
I printed it and keep it at my piano. I would suggest others here might want to do the same.
Tony
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Thanks Tony. Great songs all.
For those of you out there looking for new songs to work on it’s certainly gotten easier to hear songs you may not know – even relatively obscure ones – in this world of YouTube. But I certainly encourage you to buy recordings too (‘support the arts’).I’ll mention again that Ted Gioia’s “The Jazz Standards” is a wonderful book full of insights into the great American standards. To take the first title on Jim Haskin’s list, Ira and George Gershwin’s ‘A Foggy Day’, Gioia writes:
“…it features one of the composer’s most inspired melodies, especially noteworthy for the quirky final bars… The contrast with the preceding buildup…could hardly be starker. This passage also forces the form beyond the 32 bars that listeners may have been expecting. If I hadn’t heard the unimpeachable results, I would have doubted that such a dramatic change in temperament…at the finish of a song could work so well.”
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As far as ‘piano heroes’, it’s difficult to single people out, there are just too many. My list would probably change every time I wrote it down. But here are a few favorites:
Ellis Marsalis – his trio work is impeccable. You can hear where his kids got their chops.
Chick Corea – years ago I got to shake his hand (that’s how close I was to the stage), still a transcendental evening for me.
Brad Mehldau – lovely and inspired
Danilo Perez – perhaps the most fun you can have at the piano (or nearby) and a generous spirit
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