Eight Classic Albums

Piano Moods (1950): EH, p; Al McKibbon, b; J. C. Heard, dr.Solo (1956): EH, p.Louis Armstrong/Earl Hines (1951): EH, p; LA, tpt; others.‘Fatha’ Plays ‘Fats’ (1956): EH, p; b, dr.The Incomparable Earl ‘Fatha’ Hines (1957): EH, p; Gene Redd, tpt; Dickie Wells, tbn; Jerome Richardson, ten sx; Leroy Harris, clari; Paul Binnings, b; Hank Milo, dr.The Earl Hines Trio (1958): EH, p; Guy Pederson, b; Gus Wallez, dr.Earl’s Pearl’s (1960): EH, p; Calvin Newborn, guit; Carl Pruitt, b; William English, dr.A Monday Day Date (1961): EH, p; Eddie Smith, tpt; Jimmy Archey, tbn; Darnell Howard, clari; others.In 1927, Earl “Fatha” Hines joined Louis Armstrong in the recording studio and transformed jazz piano playing forever. He was twenty-three. In the early ‘40s (1942-44), his band was home for many of the revolutionaries who created be-bop, the archetypal modern jazz –Charlie Parker for a while (he eventually fired Parker for unpunctuality –junkies aren’t great clock watchers), Dizzy Gillespie, Budd Johnson, Gene Ammons, Wardell Gray, Shadow Wilson, etc., including a tiny piano player who also sang, named Sarah Vaughan). The big band era ended for Hines in 1948. Times had changed but it wasn’t clear he had, or could any more. A few years with the Louis Armstrong All-Stars and Hines was back on the road again, only with small combos. He was still open to new music: his 1954 group was composed of him, transitional player Bennie Green on trombone (came out of swing but recorded and performed with everyone up through Parker, Miles Davis, Dizzy, Booker Ervin, Sonny Criss and Randy Weston) and dedicated beboppers Tommy Potter on bass and Art Blakey on drums. Etta Jones was their singer. Until the market for jazz dried up at the end of the fifties, Hines’ performances and playing were prolific. He was ”discovered” again in the 60s and recorded album after album of amazing music all the way up to his death, a few days after his last performance in 1983. He was eighty then. After he died, as he had requested, his Steinway piano was auctioned to provide financial support for low-income music students.Most often pegged as a transitional pianist, the link between the syncopated, heavy left hand music of the stride pianists and the lighter and more agile single note line piano of swing and later, Hines was more than that. He was a walking, talking compendium of jazz piano from its earliest recorded days well into the fifties. You’ll recognize that if you listen to him across these amazing performances from 1951-61, eight recording sessions here condensed on four CDs. For most of them, Hines was in his fifties and he had been playing high quality, often startling music for a quarter of a century already. The weakest session is probably the one with Armstrong’s All-Stars. It isn’t bad, just doesn’t stretch Hines. The best are almost all the others, although you will find the tribute album to Fats Waller especially charming, both the tunes chosen to be played and Hines’s effortless cooptation of Waller’s ebullient ease. As I was listening across these albums, I noted echoes or foretellings of these pianists. Especially in solo, he can hearken back to the great stride pianists, and because he had big, strong hands, there were echoes of the best and most adventurous of the stride players, James P. Johnson. Waller. Teddy Wilson too. Nat King Cole –Hines had swing down cold and he was sympathetic to bop. Red Garland did things when playing that echo Hines. Some of Monk’s chordings and the effective us of heavy hands on the keyboard. And most surprising to me was (1) how close Hines’s approach to playing was at moments to Erroll Garner’s and (2) how close at times Hines and Tatum fit together –the differences were still huge: Tatum’s arabesque embellishments on the melody line versus Hines’s earthier jazz-based lines. But Hines is the only pianist I’ve heard who could play as much piano as Tatum without leaving trad or swing for a totally different school of jazz. He could play fast or slow, heavy or light, his tremolos were wonders of nature, and his reworkings and rechordings of songs could be as startlingly unexpected as anything played Garner or Tatum ever played.An added plus with Hines? Even on the down and dirty tunes, he sounds basically, inherently sunny.

Fatha is in the zone on these forgotten albums! The greatest jazz pianist ever plays with a panache and ease that in later years was too often replaced with a knot tying urgency! The complexities still delight but Fatha is so relaxed it moves the heart! Even when jamming with Satchmo where a love-hate relationship existed until the end of their lives Fatha shows us the most innovative stylist and more so the most entertaining stylist ever. Earl's blues for Tatum is a window into why Whitney Balliet estemeed Hines as a bluesman par exvellence! And assumed it must be because Pittsburgh and environs on the 3 rivers were in constant contact with the Memphis and the South. This was once my home, too! Hines was as famous for Gershwin and Chopin as he was the blues. The 2 unheralded solo albums before the "rediscovery" in the early sixties and thestuff with Satch are miraculous essays in the black American art of jazz! The other stuff are extras,gifts of a genius whose likes like a rare comet we we won't see again for oh a thousand years-if ever!

There's a lot of good music within this four CD set and it is decently mastered. Much of it had not been reissued on CD or originally appeared on long defunct labels. The only issue that I have with it is the lack of discographical information: no recording dates or detailed lists of personnel.

If you like Earl Hines, this set is for you.

Great bargain with wonderful performances by a master jazz pianist. Recording quality a bit shrill but not too much a problem considering age of recordings.

Received in good condition. Nice cd

Great set of CDs. But i agree with Ken. There is no discographical data provided with the set. Recording dates and personnel? Outside of Satch and Fatha we don't know.

exceptional value. hines oaften underrated these days.

Another good set for our collection of classics.