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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
art and entertainment--no contradiction here, June 28, 2004
Playing exposed without a rhythm section is the ultimate challenge for an improvising soloist. Nonetheless, in the early decades of jazz, players such as Earl Hines, Fats Waller, and Art Tatum established daunting standards, in terms of virtuosity, touch, swing, blues feeling, rhythmic displacement, melodic variation, harmonic richness, improvisational ingenuity, etc. There are only a small number of classics of the solo piano genre in the era of the long-playing record and the CD, in part because sustaining solo invention and variety for 40+ minutes is amazingly difficult. 1968 was for me the watershed year, with arguably the two finest contributions ever to this genre: Bill Evans's "Alone" and Oscar Peterson's "My Favorite Instrument." Since then, my own short list of outstanding solo jazz piano albums includes Peterson's "Tracks," Earl Hines' "Tour de Force," Evans's "Alone (Again)," Hank Jones' "Solo Piano," McCoy Tyner's "Revelations" and "Soliloquy," Roland Hanna's "Duke Ellington Piano Solos," and Marcus Roberts's "Alone with Three Giants." Others might like to add one or more of Keith Jarrett's rhapsodic outings or something by Dave McKenna or Brad Mehldau's "Elegiac Cycle" or . . . Hey, make your own lists!
To my list I've added "Green's Blues."
Benny Green, for some unfathomable reason, remains an underrated player (a number of his excellent Blue Note recordings, for instance, have gone out of print, which is a crime given the garbage that remains in print). No doubt the simplistic notion that Green is "merely" an Oscar Peterson clone has done his reputation damage. But given that Oscar could do it all, that's hardly an insult. Anyone who knows both players well, however, can easily hear the difference. Green's style, for instance, is more consistently funky, demonstrating his debt to other sources, such as players like Wynton Kelly and Bobby Timmons. What Peterson and Green do have in common is mainly sovereign command of their instrument, the whole encyclopedia of jazz styles at their fingertips, and an inspired knack for tight melodic playing and for swinging hard and persuasively.
On "Green's Blues," Green combines stride, swing, and post-bop styles, making for an album that is terrifically joyful and (God forbid!) entertaining. Green's playing occurs in that rare zone where there is no contradiction at all between art and entertainment. You can listen to this album a thousand times with a smile on your face, because Green isn't afraid to make his music sound good--but there is no way you can call playing on this transcendental level some kind of a sell-out. Green doesn't please the musty critics who think that recycling atonal chord clusters from the mid-sixties makes a guy an "innovator." No, Green is a different kind of "post-modern" stylist, one who feels free to draw upon what he sees as the best that the tradition has to offer and to make that into something that's his own.
Green isn't as "intellectual" or "cool" or "subtle" a player as, say, a brilliant contemporary like Brad Mehldau, who has closer affinities to Bill Evans's style. But there are complementary strengths in Green's more vigorous, muscular, extroverted approach, forged from the venerable traditions of stride, swing, and soul jazz and refined by the touch of a classically-trained player. (Interestingly enough, Mehldau and Bill Charlap, whom I take to be Green's finest contemporaries, are also classically trained.)
The fact is, there is so much liveliness, humor, and sheer instrumental panache here that this album cannot help but be an inspiration. There are also all sorts of wonderful and unexpected little touches, like the way Green strums the piano strings near the beginning of "Just You, Just Me" and uses Charlie Parker's "Now's the Time" for the coda of a truly great rendition of Duke Ellington's classic "It Don't Mean a Thing" (which also uses Gershwin's "It Ain't Necessarily So" as a bridge--talk about being "alone with three giants" . . .). Hey, discover the abundant pleasures of this album for yourself!
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Unremarkable, May 20, 2005
When Benny Green came to Boston with Ray Brown and Russell Malone a few years ago, I attended every set over three nights. I had been blown away by "Testifyin'"; and to this day, "These Are Soulful Days" remains the best piano/bass/guitar album I've heard since Nat Cole and Oscar Peterson. Green is a talented pianist -- and, by the way, a warm, friendly man.
I don't recall Ray Brown doing any solo tunes at the Regattabar, but both Green and Malone took their turns. Malone's ballad arrangements were lyrical, coherent, and clever. They were among his best moments. Green's solos, by contrast, were his weakest. He's a hard-hitting player in a trio; but without that support, he loses some steam. The problem persists here.
In simple terms, he leans too heavily on block chords. Every time he lifts his right hand, he grabs three notes. His rhythm is flawless, but he lacks nuance and grace. It's fine for stride to feel clunky and unwieldy; that's part of its charm. But as soon as he shifts into modern vocabulary, charm becomes sink weight. He never shakes it off.
Maybe as a Boston resident, I'm spoiled. I've heard Dave McKenna play ballads, and I've seen Bruce Katz boogie-woogie. Solo piano is a challenge. There's a lot of space to fill, and it takes a creative ear to know how much space to fill, when, and with what. It's an entirely different sensitivity than playing with bass and drums. And Green isn't quite there yet.
I definitely wouldn't steer you away from Benny Green. "These Are Soulful Days" is a five-star CD, required listening for straight-ahead jazz fans. "Bu's March," a knockout track from his Vanguard CD, raised the eyebrows of everyone who heard it, and for good reason. The man's a monster player -- but solo recital isn't his best profile, and this CD isn't his best work. Check out the aforementioned albums or his work with the Ray Brown Trio. Leave this one on the shelf.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An intense solo workout!, August 16, 2003
Benny Green is usually a relatively 'busy' player at the piano as demonstrated on the majority of his previous albums, however I disagree with the last review stating that this disc represents nothing more than a showoff. This album shows Green's command over the keyboard, in particular often exercising his stride technique. An inspired rendition of It Dont Mean A Thing is a highlight for me and I can honestly recommend this disc to any jazz lover - especially those who dig Green already.
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~ Oscar Peterson & Stephane Grappelli
~ Benny Green
~ Benny Green
~ Diana Krall
~ Ray Brown
by Benny Green 
