The Great Jazz Pianists: Speaking Of Their Lives And Music (Da Capo Paperback) [Paperback] Review

For jazz pianists this is a valuable resource. Lyons, a classically-trained pianist, asks somewhat consistent questions to each of the pianists presented but is also a skilled interviewer and knows how to go off on a tangent when appropriate. He also manages, for the most part, to avoid the (to me anyways) boring questions about the artists' current touring schedules, newest records, etc.
I wouldn't classify all of the pianists in this book as being representative of the "greats"; Billy Taylor and Marion McPartland, while certainly brilliant and important in their own ways, would probably not make the short list of great pianists for most pianists and jazz fans. Also, since this book's publication, many great pianists have emerged on the jazz landscape that are arguably equally deserving of the title "great". However, most of the list is truly stellar, including Herbie, Chick, Keith, McCoy, Bill, Oscar, Horace Silver, Teddy Wilson, and many other extremely influential pianists.
The interviews with Mary Lou Williams and Cecil Taylor are particularly entertaining to read because they are extremely opinionated. In fact, many of the great pianists, you will notice, are very opinionated, and perhaps this is part of what makes them great.

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Product Description:
This comprehensive survey of jazz piano, beginning with a brief history of the instrument within the jazz tradition and concluding with interviews that present twenty-seven pianists in their own words, is both wonderfully anecdotal and a serious piece of jazz history. Lyons has assembled a giant concert of piano voices-Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Teddy Wilson, Oscar Peterson, Keith Jarrett, Randy Weston, Cecil Taylor, Horace Silver, Dave Brubeck, Sun Ra, McCoy Tyner, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Chick Corea, and many others. The pianists are candid, intense, and always opinionated. Yet their responses are infused with a keen appreciation for fellow musicians, their contemporaries, and those who came before-Walter, Tatum, Ellington. For pianists everywhere, whatever their individual style, this book will speak to and for you as it expresses the thoughts of its many great artists.

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