About this blog

 

In honor of one of the best and most original piano players in jazz: Mal Waldron.

Welcome to my blog on Mal Waldron. I love jazz music and I love a good pianist but to me there is nobody in the world like Mal. His timing, his approach, his sense for dark and deep lyricism, his percussive attack on the keys: nobody sounds like Mal. The first record I heard by him was on Enja: One-Upmanship. I had never heard such a thing before. The compositions and the atmosphere but also the enormous chemistry with Steve Lacy just stunned me. After that experience he managed to stun me time after time, in the way like Coltrane stunned me hearing his records for the first time. You have to have that click with his sound but when it’s there, there’s no pianist like him. Not long after obtaining quite a few records I decided I wanted to complete his discography: his works as a leader troughout his life, and also all his appearances as co-leader and sideman after 1964. It was quite difficult to obtain some of the records. Lots of stuff is OPP (almost everything), lots of stuff is rare and released in Japan only. But this autumn I finished this project.

I will write this blog, reviewing all of his work from 1964 till his death in chronological order. I chose specifically for that year as that year was a turning point in his life and musical career. In 1963, Mal suffered his infamous breakdown. He froze on stage and was according to himself high on heroin. He was hospitalized that same year and fortunately kicked the habit. But he had to relearn al off his skills again, partly by listening to his own old recordings. The Mal after that crucial year was a whole different than the Mal before. It was in the coming years that he developed his definitive sound.

I will start with reviewing all of the records that has Mal as a leader or as a co-leader from 1964 until his death in 2002. After that I will also review his works as sideman for for example Dusko Guykovich, Nathan Davis, Benny Bailey, Klaus Weiss and of course his works with Embryo. Mal’s output was quite impressive so there are a lot of reviews to write. For me, Mal is a musical God but not God himself. Not every album he made was a 5 star album. I try to stay critical and give my own honest opinion. That also means that some albums are not rated very high. Music is a subjective matter. Feel free to disagree in the comments, your opinion is just as much worth as mine. Music is also an emotional matter, so please keep it civilized! And please forgive me when my English sounds a bit funny. As a Dutchman I can save myself but of course I am no native speaker. So expect some Louis van Gaal like statements (soccer fans know what I am talking about),

Mal's discography is huge and websites like Allmusic and RYM but also books like the Penguin Guide To Jazz mostly pay attention to the usual suspects. And what they say, well I do not always agree with it. I can imagine one doesn't know where to begin with his less known works. What I hope is that you feel inspired to spin some more Mal and buy some of his records. I mostly hope to be a guide in his enormous discography that contains some more known classics but also some unknown and highly underrated albums.