Customer Reviews

Love Story / Piano & Pen

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(This is a reaction to the Dick Katz reissue: why it was paired with Dave Pell is a mystery; they have nothing to do with each other.) It's a pity Atlantic Records allowed this gem of a jazz album to languish in their vaults. Dick Katz was-and still is!-a swinging, tasteful modern jazz pianist. If you like Teddy Wilson, Nat Cole, Tommy Flanagan, Hank Jones, Bill Evans or John Lewis, you will undoubtedly enjoy the Baltimore-born Katz, here on his first solo album. Jazz classics such as Charlie Parker's "Scrapple from the Apple" and Fats Waller's "Ain't Misbehavin" are beautifully reinterpreted, along with stellar versions of Lewis's "Afternoon in Paris" and Katz's own blues, "Timonium." With the MJQ's Connie Kay on drums, alternating guitarists Jimmy Raney and Chuck Wayne, and Duke's bassist Joe Benjamin, this one's a winner.

First of all, I bought this disc after buying two other discs by the Dave Pell Octet (I Had the Craziest Dream and Jazz Goes Dancing/Campus Hop). Those two are superb featuring some of the best west coast jazz of the 50's - I highly recommed them. My expectation for this disc was more of the same since it has essentially the same personnel (Pell, Fagerquist, Previn et. al.) but it was no where near as good. The arrangements just aren't as interesting and in fact there's really only 1 or 2 swinging tunes in the whole set. The rest plod along like a funeral march. Maybe because it was earlier, I'm not sure but the charts are very anemic and lack any kind of oomph! The second disc in this two-fer, the Katz LP reissue - is OK and features some nice stuff but not enough to make me want to play it again and again. It also suffers from some lifeless arranging which is a shame given that Jimmy Raney plays on a few of the tunes and he's such a hard swinging guitarist. Keep looking!