''Live at Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Eight'' is an album of solo performances by jazz pianist

Gerald Wiggins Gerald Foster Wiggins (May 12, 1922 – July 13, 2008) was an American jazz pianist and organist. Early life Wiggins was born in New York City on May 12, 1922.Vacher, Pete"Wiggins, Gerry" ''The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz'' (2nd edition). G ...

, recorded in 1990.

Music and recording

The album was recorded in August 1990 at the

Maybeck Recital Hall Maybeck Recital Hall, also known as Maybeck Studio for Performing Arts, is located inside the Kennedy-Nixon House located at 1537 Euclid Avenue in Berkeley, California, United States. It was built in 1914 by Bernard Maybeck. The hall seats up to 50 ...

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

. The material is mostly

jazz standards Jazz standards are musical compositions that are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive list ...

Release and reception

''Live at Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Eight'' was released by

Concord Records Concord Records is an American record label owned by Concord and based in Los Angeles, California. Concord Records was launched in 1995 as an imprint designed to reach beyond the company's foundational Concord Jazz label. The label's artists have ...

. The

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

reviewer commented that "No matter how familiar the standard, ..Wiggins finds a fresh approach while retaining the lyrical essence of each piece." ''

The Penguin Guide to Jazz ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' is a reference work containing an encyclopedic directory of jazz recordings on CD which were (at the time of publication) currently available in Europe or the United States. The first nine editions were compiled by ...

'' described it in 1992 as "arguably his best-ever record". A reviewer for ''CD Review Digest'' called Wiggins "one of the most schooled and versatile pianists playing jazz today," and wrote: "His ballads are beautiful, his swingers swing, and his treatment of standards is so refreshing that you might almost be hearing them for the first time." Bill Kohlhaase of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' stated that "There's a bit of Art Tatum to be heard" on the album," and noted that Wiggins "brings some of the same strolling rhythms, a rich harmonic sense and the kind of playful, inventive embellishments to his standard treatments that Tatum... brought to his music."

Track listing

#"Yesterdays" #"My Ship" #"All the Things You Are" #"Night Mist Blues" #"Body and Soul" #"Easy to Love" #"You're Mine You" #"I Should Care" #"Don't Blame Me" #"Take the 'A' Train" #"Berkeley Blues" #"Lullaby of the Leaves"

Personnel

– piano

References

{{Authority control 1990 live albums Albums recorded at the Maybeck Recital Hall Concord Records live albums Solo piano jazz albums