Erroll Garner

Featuring: Erroll Garner (piano solo)

Too often in jazz commercial success is followed by reduced critical acceptance, lessened artistic standards, or both. The “experts” become tired of hearing the artist once he has mass acceptance, and too often are prone to complain that he has “sold out” whether he has or not.

Erroll Garner’s was an exceptional case. He was one of the delights of the era, one of the most popular jazz pianists in the world, and he would remain unchangeably one of the best. Erroll did this session without rhythm section and with only nine fingers (the index finger of his left hand was in a splint). But nothing could change, or reduce, his capacity for swinging. He is easily and unflaggingly his own rhythm section; in several places, his orchestral conception conveys a big band feeling to the date.

Tracklisting:

CD 1
01. Yesterdays
02. Who?
03. A Cottage for Sale
04. That Old Feeling
05. Over the Rainbow
06. Afternoon of an Elf
07. Solitaire
08. Sleep
09. When a Gypsy Makes His Violin Cry

CD 2
01. A Smooth One
02. I’ll Never Smile Again
03. Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby
04. Love in Bloom
05. Fandango
06. It’s the Talk of the Town
07. Salud Segovia
08. Then You’ve Never Been Blue
09. Don’t Be That Way
10. All My Loves Are You
11. St. James Infirmary


All tracks recorded in New York, on March 14, 1955.