Album Reviews:
Tracey’s piano playing just goes on getting better. It grips you from the very first note with its twists and turns, its droll asides, its romping good humour tinged with plangent melancholy. Following a Tracey improvisation is taking a walk with a hugely knowledgeable but benignly eccentric companion.
You never know quite where you will end up, but it is a very interesting journey".
Dave Gelly, The Observer, 1998
"…Stan Tracey’s material (an Ellington staple, a triple helping of Thelonious Monk, a Ron Carter blues, plus a few standards) …his approach (the startling choppy rhythms, the sudden transitions from clanging chords to skipping runs, the infectiously robust delight in finding new routes through familiar chord sequences) … simply showcases the work of a world-class original".
The Times, 1998
Stan Tracey is one of the foremost British pianists… (in this CD)… we get to hear Tracey as he moves from expressive single note runs which emphasise the rhythm of a composition to lush chords which emphasise the composition’s harmonic basis… a rhythm section… seems to free him up… and allows him to play more rhythmically.
Monk and Ellington are probably his foremost influences, but I hear other pianists too, people like Randy Weston and Abdullah Ibrahim… but this is no mere pastiche of styles, it’s an individual voice. Moreover his ideas are so good, he’s more that just worth listening to, his playing is fun and exciting too…(The rhythm section of Andy Cleyndert, bass and Clark Tracey Drums)… take interesting solos… but they don’t sparkle the way Tracey does.
Stan Tracey is well-known in Britain. After listening to this disc, I wondered why he isn’t better known in the US.
Eric Saidel - Cadence Magazine 1999
credits
released June 14, 2018
Piano: Stan Tracey
Double Bass: Andrew Cleyndert
Drums: Clark Tracey
Solos recorded 2 January 1997, Trios recorded 13 June 1997.
There is something about about the way the strings and the winds talk to each other in this album that is attractive. The relaxed pace of many of the pieces also fits my taste. aswinmusiclistening
"a sound palette which sits in a place between amplified Fusion, grand big band sound, yet also sweaty improvisational club atmosphere, without ever clearly committing to one of these aspects for long. This music, which is presented in an easily digestable average song length of seven minutes, flows between styles very subtly without you even actively noticing it during casual listening."
https://derohlsen.blogspot.com/2023/07/jazz-in-britain-barbara-thompson-first.html Der Ohlsen