Customer Reviews

Piano Music By Black Composers

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Wonderful! There is something on this CD for every taste, and it provides an excellent introduction to a broad cross-section of musical styles: nineteenth-century romanticism, impressionism, jazz, Negro folk tunes, and contemporary clissicism. Pianist Gaylord is equally at ease in any of these musical languages.

What a treat this collection is. I've been listening to it for the past two days straight and am thoroughly hooked. As the previous reviewer writes, there are a lot of styles represented here: W.G. Still's rather Debussy-like Three Visitors, Swanson's playful "The Cuckoo," Dett's serene "Prelude: The Night," Peterson's and Ellington's jazzy pieces, and the Chopinesque romanticism of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Valse Suite. I have long been a fan of jazz pianists from Jelly Roll Morton to McCoy Tyner, but, to be clear, these are much more so European-style *classical* pieces than jazz or anything else, though there are jazz influences in many of the pieces (Peterson and Ellington, obviously). I don't think anyone would place any of these compositions on the level of Beethoven or Chopin, but they are delightful in their own right and well worth hearing (repeatedly in my case). I am especially fond of all the Still pieces; they have persuaded me to seek out more of his compositions. The performances by Monica Gaylord are first rate, and the total playing time of 77 minutes makes for a great bargain.