At The Village Vanguard

ARTIST: The Great Jazz Trio
Hank Jones - piano
Ron Carter - bass
Tony Williams - drums

RECORDING:
The Village Vanguard
New York City
February 19 and 20, 1977

DESCRIPTION:
In February 1977, three jazz giants came together for a week in the legendary Village Vanguard in New York City, creating the first in a series of live recordings that became the definitive work of the group known as The Great Jazz Trio. This session featured the original Great Jazz Trio dream team of Hank Jones, Ron Carter and Tony Williams, a unique combination of multi-generational musicians (at the time Hank was 58, Ron 39, Tony 31) of different experience & styles (Tony liked rock and led a fusion band called Lifetime).

From the 6-hours of great jazz recorded over 3-days, this album features jazz standards such as John Coltrane’s “Naima” and Charlie Parker’s “Moose the Mooche.” In addition, Ron Carter brought his own blues piece, “12+12” and Hank Jones found a rarely performed piece, “Favors,” written by Claus Orgermann to perform.

Ron Carter and Tony Williams have played together before as part of the Miles Davis Quintet in the ‘60s. The synergy of this trio was so great, Hank commented, “The two would pick up in an instant anything that I would do. It was like telepathy. That made it so thrilling and fun.”

(click thumbnail for larger image)