Martial Solal will celebrate his 90th birthday in one week - one of the most amazing piano players *ever*, and I guess one of the very small group that can be seen (amongst other things) as a true heir of Art Tatum's!


Decided to go with two collaborations last night, a wonderful album recorded with Sidney Bechet (and two bebop drummers, Al Levitt on the first session and that amazing and most elegant of dancers, Kenny "Klook" Clarke on the second), repertoire is not New Orleans warhorses but standards from the thirties, and the results are wonderful indeed!
The duo with Johnny Griffin is a slowly growing one, I remember how I was initially quite disappointed, but it's a fine album, a quiet one, that stresses the art of the dialogue (which is after all what duos should be about), rather than the ample flash that both of them have ...
Actually my only time to catch them live was in a trio: Johnny Griffin, Martial Solal and Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen - the youngest of the bunch and the first one to die shortly after. It was not a great concert, alas, but it was still great to catch these three masters (and actually NHOP really did shine a few times) ... would love to see Solal again, not sure if he's still regularly performing these days.
Griffin is, just as is Solal, one of my very favourite musicians ever!