Concert by the Sea

Garner, Erroll

album cover

Refined Piano Trio

It's rare to hear applause break out in the middle of a jazz solo, but that's what happens after a particularly spry chorus from Erroll Garner on "I'll Remember April," the opening track on this famous live recording from 1955. The Pittsburgh-born pianist begins with a beboppy flourish of single lines, followed by sixteen bars of crashing chords, the kind that require both hands playing together. Then, suddenly, he turns down the volume. The audience strains to hear where Garner's trio will go; delighted applause breaks out when, after the music's been whispering, Garner drops a series of carefully placed pokes and boxer jabs, phrases that have a taunting hide-and-seek quality. These, inevitably, lead to some circus-sideshow razzle-dazzle.

A self-taught musician who played entirely by ear, Garner (1921–1977) was prone to such exaggerated manipulations—which some detractors considered keyboard stunts. An easygoing performer (one Garner biography is titled The Most Happy Piano), he understood that while audiences expected feats of musical daring, they also wanted to be entertained. His performances here are a touch more "scripted" than those of most jazz headliners, but that's not necessarily a fault: Through abrupt loud-soft contrasts and mood swings, Garner creates riveting episodes. One minute he's conjuring the wry blues of old-time stride players and the next he's in a modern mode, chopping through angular, severe-sounding chords. Though he skips around through several decades, the ride is Cadillac smooth, and extraordinarily assured.

The only downside to Concert by the Sea, one of the best-selling jazz piano albums of all time, is its sound quality. Though the auditorium, a converted church in Carmel, California, is known to offer sparkling acoustics, the recording is generally dim. The piano sounds as though it's been captured at a distance—muffling Garner's precise attack on the up-tempo numbers.

Genre: Jazz
Released: 1955, Columbia
Key Tracks: "I'll Remember April," "It's All Right with Me," "Where or When," "Teach Me Tonight"
Catalog Choice: Solo Flight; The Original Misty.
Next Stop: Ahmad Jamal: But Not for Me
After That: Art Hodes: Art Hodes' Hot Five.
Book Pages: 301–302

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