If you had any doubt that Herbie is a genius on the keys, you can lay them to rest when you listen to his solo ‘The Piano’ album.
There are four originals, interspersed with three of the standards that he’d thoroughly absorbed over the previous years while performing with Miles’ quintet. The whole album feels very much a ‘whole’, testament to Herbie’s wonderful judgement and treatment of each individual piece, weaving them together in a organic way, unlike what happens with many solo recordings.
It stands up there with the great solo albums from Evans, Monk, Jarrett and Peterson. This particular selection is a pretty challenging bluesy effort that is the last track of the album.
- Herbie Hancock – Blue Otani solo (PDF and MP3 reference file)
