Prestige's very first live recording was a near prefect choice. The now largely under-appreciated Garland was one of the great mainstream pianists and he was at the peak of his form for this 1959 three-set session at the Harlem bar.
The sidemen here were assembled only for the recording and as a consequence Garland stuck to the standards and hothouse, barroom jams of the era. The trio clicked from the start, the tunes were familiar enough to anybody playing in New York at the time that finding a groove was easy, and Garland's wondrously idiosyncratic right-hand moves put an individual spin on them to produce a beautifully varied and at times sublime performance.
This is a must for mainstream jazz fans interested in the piano room music of New York at the end of the 1950s, and swinging hard bop in general. For Garland fans it's a treasure trove.
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Track Listing :
Disk 1
1. M-Squad (theme)
2.
There Will Never Be Another You
3.
Let Me See; We Kiss In A Shadow
4.
Clues In The Closet; Satin Doll
5.
Li'l Darlin'
6.
One O'Clock Jump
7.
Perdido
8.
Bye Bye Blackbird
9.
Like Someone In Love
Disk 2
1.
It's A Blue World
2.
Marie
3.
Bohemian Blues
4.
One O'Clock Jump
5.
A Foggy Day
6.
Satin Doll
7.
Mr Wonderful
8.
Just Squeeze Me (But Don't Tease Me)
9.
Prelude Blues
10.
Cherokee.
Personnel :
Red Garland (piano); Jimmy Rowser (bass); Charles 'Specs' Wright (drums).
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