Some Of My Best Friends Are...The Piano Players

Performer: Ray Brown (Bass)
Artist: Ahmad Jamal; Benny Green; Dado Moroni; Geoff Keezer; Oscar Peterson
Engineer: Jack Renner
Producer: Ray Brown; Elaine Martone
Distributor: Fontana Distribution

Notes: Personnel includes: Ray Brown (bass), Benny Green, Ahmad Jamal, Geoff Keezer, Dado Moroni, Oscar Peterson (piano), Lewis Nash (drums). Recorded at Clinton Recording Studio, New York on November 21, 1995 and Glenn Gould Hall, Toronto, Ontario, Canada on November 18, 1994. This is part of Ray Brown's Some Of My Best Friends Are... series. Contains 13 tracks. On his Telarc disc Ray Brown teams up with five different piano players but, rather than this being a tribute to the veteran bassist (who has solo space on every selection), the CD ends up being a celebration of the great Oscar Peterson because Benny Green, Dado Moroni and Geoff Keezer have, to various degrees, based their styles on O.P. The individual standout is actually Ahmad Jamal who had never previously recorded with Brown. Together with Lewis Nash they perform two blues and "Love Walked In," all renditions that make a liberal use of space and pay close attention to dynamics. Benny Green, who plays his "Ray of Light" along with two standards, had performed regularly with Brown in recent years and his selections offer few surprises. Dodo Moroni is fine on "My Romance" and inserts a bit of Erroll Garner on "Giant Steps" while Geoff Keezer (who had also never played with Brown) swings well on "Close Your Eyes." The CD concludes with a reunion between Oscar Peterson (who had recently recovered from a stroke) and Brown on "St. Tropez" and the upbeat "How Come You Do Me like You Do?" The results overall are pleasing and swinging (serving as a sampler of the pianists' styles) but not all that innovative. ~ Scott Yanow

JazzTimes (6/95, p.98) - "...two generations of pianists...all come off well in a collection that sounds less like a cutting session than a collection of interviews....Brown is at top form on the bottom line, including some incredibly rich arco work that seems almost a surfeit in light of his impeccable intonation and time..."

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