“a set of high-quality explorations of eight bop standards” “Jones is sensitive on the ballads and lightly but firmly swinging on the more uptempo material. Typically tasteful performances come from one of the greats”.(Bop Redux - Wikipedia)
Expanded to 15 tracks on Tidal
For Live at Maybeck Recital Hall, Vol. 16, Concord persuaded a reigning giant of the piano to record at Maybeck’s Yamaha keyboard – and the result is one of the most musical, and certainly one of the most enjoyable, concerts in the whole series. Recorded closely enough so that you can hear him grunting along with the music, Hank Jones gives full vent to his melodic gifts in a brace of pop and jazz standards from several decades, never staying on any of them for more than five minutes, and rarely falling back on the usual pianistic bop patterns. Starting out with very attractive stride work on “I’ll Guess I Have to Change My Plan” and “It’s the Talk of the Town,” he always chooses his notes with care while rarely losing touch with the pulse of jazz, which is all too tempting in a solo format. Among the more touching moments are the treatments of “I Cover the Waterfront” and “Memories of You”; “Blue Monk” and Joe Bushkin’s “Oh, Look at Me Now” have the most wit.
One could excuse Hank Jones if, at the time of The Oracle, the 70-year-old pianist chose to stick to revivalist bop, but the biggest surprise of this very democratic date is how modern he plays. Jones is Monkish on “Blues for CM” and often sounds more like a contemporary of McCoy Tyner than of Bud Powell, whom Hank was actually born six years before. Bassist Dave Holland has nearly as much solo space as Jones (along with contributing three compositions), and drummer Billy Higgins gets more space than usual. If there is any fault to this otherwise flawless CD (which also has some underplayed standards such as “Beautiful Love” and “Yesterdays”), it is that there are no individual features. But the interplay between the three musicians is quite impressive.