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Kenny Barron | The Traveler
To understand the caliber of the man, it’s enough to contemplate the long list of exceptional musicians who have availed themselves of his services during his career, a career lasting some fifty years: from Chet Baker to Freddie Hubbard via Joe Henderson, Abbey Lincoln, Helen Merrill, Chico Freeman, George Benson, Yusef Lateef, Lee Konitz, James Moody or Dizzy Gillespie… Barron, like such other keyboard-legends as Hank Jones and Tommy Flanagan, belongs to the aristocracy of the great jazz pianists, musicians who succeeded in taking the accompanist’s art to its highest degree of finesse and distinction.The Traveler, in this sense, merely extends and deepens the intuitions laid down by his predecessors. It is likely, however, that Kenny Barron never went as far as he does here in expressing a sort of elaborate aesthetic of understatement with a virtuosity that is paradoxical: he reaches the limits of eclipse.
..:: Source: Amazon.com ::..