Live at Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Eight explained

Live at Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Eight
Type:Live
Artist:Gerald Wiggins
Cover:Gerry_Wiggins_Live_at_Maybeck_Recital_Hall_Volume_Eight.jpg
Recorded:August 1990
Venue:Maybeck Recital Hall, Berkeley, California, U.S.
Genre:Jazz
Label:Concord

Live at Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Eight is an album of solo performances by jazz pianist Gerald Wiggins, recorded in 1990.

Music and recording

The album was recorded in August 1990 at the Maybeck Recital Hall in Berkeley, California. The material is mostly jazz standards.

Release and reception

Live at Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Eight was released by Concord Records. The AllMusic reviewer commented that "No matter how familiar the standard, [...] Wiggins finds a fresh approach while retaining the lyrical essence of each piece." The Penguin Guide to Jazz described it in 1992 as "arguably his best-ever record". A reviewer for CD Review Digest called Wiggins "one of the most schooled and versatile pianists playing jazz today," and wrote: "His ballads are beautiful, his swingers swing, and his treatment of standards is so refreshing that you might almost be hearing them for the first time."[1] Bill Kohlhaase of the Los Angeles Times stated that "There's a bit of Art Tatum to be heard" on the album," and noted that Wiggins "brings some of the same strolling rhythms, a rich harmonic sense and the kind of playful, inventive embellishments to his standard treatments that Tatum... brought to his music."[2]

Track listing

  1. "Yesterdays"
  2. "My Ship"
  3. "All the Things You Are"
  4. "Night Mist Blues"
  5. "Body and Soul"
  6. "Easy to Love"
  7. "You're Mine You"
  8. "I Should Care"
  9. "Don't Blame Me"
  10. "Take the 'A' Train"
  11. "Berkeley Blues"
  12. "Lullaby of the Leaves"

Personnel

Notes and References

  1. Reviews . CD Review Digest . 1992 . 6 . 580.
  2. Web site: He's Got His Own Work to Do: Gerald Wiggins, Accompanist to Many, Concentrates on His Music . Bill . Kohlhaase . July 12, 1991 . Los Angeles Times . March 10, 2023.