Mal Waldron

DIGIPACK EDITION

FIRST EVER RELEASE ON CD !

A pianist with a brooding, rhythmic, introverted style, Mal Waldron's playing has long been flexible enough to fit into both hard bop and freer settings.  
The Opening, recorded in November 1970 (a year before he had recorded Free at Last - the first ever release by the iconic ECM label) is a solo piano setting  from a period in which he mainly performed this way between his visits to Japan and back home in the States.

When you hear Mal Waldron’s sound, you hear the New York sophistication, the stride piano thing, the Ellington-Monk continuum, the Bud Powell sound — and of course, Mal Waldron, as Charles Mingus admonished him always to retain…

Waldron often seemed at his best alone or one-to-one - he was immensely creative in duos with Lacy and with South African bassist Johnny Dyani and when played solo the music showed him at his most determinedly minimalist, building solos out of hypnotically minuscule variations.

PERSONNEL:

MAL WALDRON, solo piano

Recorded at the Centre Culturel Américain in Paris, November 19, 1970.

TRACKS:

01. Right On
02. Of Pigs and Panthers
03. Cry Out
04. Die Fludel
05. Petite Gémeaux
06. Sieg Haile