John Lewis - The John Lewis Piano (1973 Japanese Atlantic Mono LP)

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John Lewis - The John Lewis Piano | Vinyl LP - 1973 Japanese Atlantic Mono (P-6117A, Warner-Pioneer Corporation)

John Lewis is best known as the pianist, composer and musical director of the Modern Jazz Quartet. His Atlantic solo records sit beside the MJQ catalogue as a parallel body of work, more explicitly shaped by his interests in European classical form and third stream composition than the MJQ recordings allowed.

This album assembles seven pieces from three different sessions. "Harlequin" opens with solo piano, Lewis working through a melody built on the same commedia dell'arte tradition that would later surface in the MJQ's Fontessa and in the closing "Two Lyric Pieces." "Little Girl Blue" (Rodgers and Hart, from Jumbo, 1935) and "D and E" bring in Heath and Kay for two trio readings. "The Bad and the Beautiful" is David Raksin's love theme from the 1952 Vincente Minnelli film of the same name, played as a slow duo with Barry Galbraith's guitar. "It Never Entered My Mind," also Rodgers and Hart (from Higher and Higher, 1940), and "Warmeland" continue the Galbraith duos. "Warmeland" is the Swedish folk melody from the Värmland region that Miles Davis had recorded as "Dear Old Stockholm" in 1952; Lewis's approach is softer and more deliberate.

"Two Lyric Pieces" closes the album at nearly eleven minutes. Jim Hall replaces Galbraith. The suite's two movements are "Pierrot" and "Colombine," named for the commedia dell'arte characters whose masked interactions Lewis had used as compositional metaphors since the early 1950s. Hall's guitar and Lewis's piano interact with the same precision and listening that Hall would later bring to his duo work with Bill Evans.

This is the 1973 Japanese Atlantic mono pressing (P-6117A), manufactured by Warner-Pioneer Corporation.