Jim Hall and two pianists, Evans and Petruciani

I haven't known this guy named Petruciani. He plays pretty nice with Jim Hall at this video. And I found that there is amazing resembalance with the recording of Undercurrent that was done with Bill Evans and Jim.

Petruciani + Jim Hall : beautiful love.

I am pretty sure that the Undercurrent was recorded much earlier than this video, isn't it? Yeah, right. That was 1962. I was 19. Arrogant in every aspect of my life. Were you not at the age?

I hear Evans touch of backing. With nice combination of block coding at lower octave. Beside, voicing itself sounds pretty close to that of Bill.

Would Petruciani is that tactful guy? I don't know 'cause this is the first time ever listen to his playing. It may be this: If Jim has to be comfortable with backing, the accompanist must be like Bill, is it? Jim is quite nice at both accompaniments.

Jim sure plays better with Valentine. But then it's a recording session. They both could have great time knowing each other. . .

By the way, the recording with this video is much better than the LP I bought.

Jazz piano plyaers of Japanese origin

I know there are lots of Japanese jazz players active in US jazz scene. Mr. Ozone, is the one and these are the most frequently played pieces at You tube.

We are all alone. Simple chord progression, very basic. It sounds nice. Listening to his balad reminds of a discussion we had in college. That was around 1960, Oscar Peterson, Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey, Horace Silver, etc & etc. The best year for the so called Modern Jazz.

This is his trio version.

We were arguing whom to follow, Bill Evans or Oscar Peterson.

The LP disks were expensive at the time. The exchange rate was JPY360 to US$1. It is 1/3 now. We had to deversify the budget.

Years passed. Most of them are gone. But here are those new breeds. I am not crilicizing but the Japanese players sound too clean. There's no earthy nor gloomy feeling in there. It makes the whole sound something unrealistic. Well, for me, at least.

This is his solo of same tune.


I feel lucky because I can listen to any of those players on internet. Ozone or whoever it is.

Do you listen Radio?

I do a lot. Basically, I do not want any excessive noise around. I gave my wife to listen her favorite TV with earphone. Right, we are living rabbit burn. We used to live nice house in suburb. As we get older, it became pretty hard to go out for shopping. So we moved into a apartment house that has 25 floors.

That's right. It was 2 month ago we were hit by the heaviest earthquake in my life. The building did swing all right. We have a light hanging down from ceiling. It swung, men, it did swing and we surely got terrified.

We picked up pet cat, 16 years old by the way, and run down from 13th floor. It took much more time than we had expected. We got old. I was forced to realize that.

That was two months ago. Time flies. Well other than that, we live in peace and calm. Now I need some kind of sound every once in a while. I pick up earphone, not the headphone by the way. And listen to the Jazz.

I prefer vocal jazz sometime, piano jazz sometime, but never the jazz music of pre-1950es. And I was listening Tommy Flanagan. It's been a while. But his way of playing piano sounds so smooth. But if you wish to try his way, It's tough.

He sings. The way he sings cannot be imitated. It is completely different thing from so called swing. He sings. And I mean it. Check the video attached, you'll know what I mean.