Several years ago I was driving to work listening to the radio. I tend to flip through my presets, one of which is 88.1 KKJZ, also known as K-Jazz. A song was just starting, and I recognized as an arrangement of the Duke Ellington hit "I'm Beginning To See the Light". It was a small combo, just piano bass and drums, and the pianist was amazing. His runs were so smooth and his playing so dynamic and expressive that I nearly pulled the car over to just listen. After the song the dj announced the previous handful of songs, and gave the pianists name as Peter Nero. As soon as I got to work I got on the internet to see if I could find the album the song was on. I quickly found the Peter Nero is the conductor/director of the Philly Pops orchestra and has been a professional pianist since the 50s, which goes a long way in explaining his talent. I also found not only the name of the album, but that nobody had it for sale. I spent the better part of my prep period (good thing I don't work an office job) tracking down a used copy.
The album is short, with just 6 songs. Most of them are quite long, but the album is still just over 30 minutes long. It's a fantastic 30+ minutes, however. I love this album and listen to it regularly. The first track on the album is the aforementioned "I'm Beginning To See the Light" and it's my favorite. One of these days I'll do a bit more exploring of Peter Nero's music, but the sheer size of his recorded output makes it a daunting task. Unlike when I first went looking, you can now get this album on Amazon, although you're still buying from an outside seller because the album is out of print.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment