A World of Piano!

Newborn, Phineas Jr.

album cover

Not many pianists could get away with the Liberace-style flourish that is Phineas Newborn Jr.'s opening statement here. The song is the bebop blues "Cheryl," and after a brisk romp through the theme, Newborn begins a series of perfect triplets that ascend, gradually, from the middle of the keyboard. Up and up he climbs, his fingers tracing a tornadolike whirl that doesn't stop until he runs out of keys.

It's pure showmanship, the kind of thing that makes casual listeners in the clubs sit upright and pay attention. But as is often true with the prodigiously gifted Newborn, there's more going on—underneath it, deep in the basement of the piano, the Memphis jazzman's left hand supplies an earthy blues melody. That's this often-ignored pianist's killer app, the ability to slip profound inventions between flashes of jaw-dropping technique.

A fixture of the New York hard bop scene in the early '60s, Newborn struggled with mental illness and disappeared for years at a time. Though his command of the piano rivaled that of Oscar Peterson, to whom he was frequently compared, Newborn never won widespread acclaim the way Peterson did.

One reason: Where Peterson is forever conscious of pleasing his crowd, Newborn chases his own bliss. He shoots wildly intelligent, iconoclastic ideas into otherwise nondescript mid-tempo swing, rippling and roaring where other pianists would be content to prance. Newborn's placid introduction to "Lush Life" is a work of great inward-looking meditation, while his solo on "Daahoud" is its polar opposite—its reckless curiosity sends the rhythm team of bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Philly Joe Jones into an effortless overdrive. Newborn's dynamic playing made him a favorite among musicians, and though his subsequent works don't sustain the zing that distinguishes A World of Piano!, he's heard in full roar on Roy Haynes's We Three, which was recorded the following year.

Genre: Jazz
Released: 1962, Contemporary
Key Tracks: "Cheryl," "Oleo," "Lush Life," "Daahoud."
Catalog Choice: Harlem Blues.
Next Stop: Roy Haynes: We Three
After That: Wynton Kelly: Kelly Blue.
Book Pages: 548–549

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