Customer Reviews

Introducing

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The one thing everyone remembers about pianist Carl Perkins is the unusual way he held his left hand parallel to the keyboard as he played: it might have looked strange, but it didn't impede his swinging modern style. He unfortunately didn't get his due, dying at the age of 29, but if this album, the only one he recorded under his name, is any indication, jazz lost a master just as his career was about to take off. I hear a lot of Hampton Hawes in his style, and he is particularly effective on up-tempo tunes and the blues. WAY CROSS TOWN is an attractive original by Perkins (his most famous composition is GROOVEYARD), as are WESTSIDE and CARL'S BLUES, two blues tunes that swing nicely and are funky, too. On slow ballads he is quite inventive, sometimes playing dense, full chords (YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT LOVE IS) and other times playing behind the beat, producing a very laid back feeling. This is a very attractive West Coast trio album (Leroy Vinnegar is on bass, Lawrence Marable on drums) and should be better known. Definitely worth having.

Of the hundreds of pianists who followed in the wake of Bud Powell (who was essentially transcribing Charlie Parker's bebop lines to the right hand's single-note melodic inventions), Carl Perkins was among the most creative. All he has to do is play several measures--as a soloist or accompanist--to be immediately identifiable. The distinguishing mark of his playing is a rhapsodic quality, a romantic lyricism that owes as much to Erroll Garner as to Bud Powell. No one plays a ballad or, for that matter, the blues with more sheer passion and joy that Carl.

This was Carl's one and only album as a leader, and it's likely to remain a hard-to-come by collector's item. The photo of Carl on the back cover of the LP reveals the deformity wreaked upon him by polio, and the photo on the front cover provides some clue to the unhappiness that led to a fatal ... overdose before his 30th birthday. Carl may not have realized his potential, but he left his mark. "Lilacs in the Rain" is a fitting representation of his piano style and its influence--a brief florescence and lingering sweet fragrance.

Simply one of the greatest jazz piano trio recordings ever. Perkins had a completely inimitable touch and time-feel, amazing focus and lucidity, and a unique sense of form and solo architecture. He raised the level of every group he played in (catch him, for instance, in that "Pepper Adams Quintet" album from 1957), and really deserves to be remembered as a great jazz pianist. He did record quite a bit during his brief life (w/Oscar Moore, Stuff Smith, Jim Hall, the Curtis Counce group among others), and if you love the piano, it's all worth checking out.

I became a fan of Carl Perkins shortly after I started listening to jazz in 1959 when I bought the GNP Brown-Roach record, Shortly after that, I found the Dootone lp in a shop. Still have it, but for once the cd sounds better than the original vinyl. This is just great!