by PAUL BACON
HAVE YOU MET MR. JONES?
Mike, that is, ------ piano player from the Boston area?
If not, now's the time. This list of tunes is just about as
ecclectic as his style; a touch of stride, a taste of McKenna-ish,
thundering bass, a dizzying passage tossed off with Tatum-like
articulation and time, a liberal dash of humor - and still what
comes through is all Mr. Jones. 
He makes me think of a basic principle of jazz that was never
better expressed than by Jabbo Smith: when asked how he managed
the dangerous flights that marked his playing, he said
"I play a note and go where it takes me."
Exactly. Some of the runs and explosions Mike Jones rips through
with such elan sound perilous indeed, but he emerges unscathed
and looking for new trouble - no problem.
There is nothing tentative about his playing. It is assertive
and nervy, and it swings. Two-fisted isn't quite it; on some
numbers it's three-fisted, maybe, as in Linger Awhile, which
starts in an elegiac mood and becomes a barn-burner, showering
notes like sparks in all directions. But nicely under control.
In the Gershwin medley (They Can't Take That Away From
Me) he practically shouts "It's Erroll Garner time!"
and sails into a pure sample of the master, just for the hell
of it, and he slips in a bit more on Ellington's, Squeeze
Me.
I'm continually amazed at the technique modern jazz pianists
take for granted; when you contemplate the great technicians
- Tatum, Peterson, Bud Powell- who stood out even from monster
piano players like Fats Waller (who didn't need, or miss, that
kind of technique, no doubt), and then think of the jazz pianists
of today, you must conclude that what's happening is what's
happening all over. In the classical concert world, 9-year-old-girls
play like Casals, 20-year-old pianists enter competitions and
they all play like Horowitz. The barriers have been pushed far
out.
This record was made live- no studio, no second thoughts. The
prodigies that Mike Jones strews around are simply how he plays.
What he thinks of, he can execute- and he executes some things
that must come from some kind of musical impulse beyond or below
thought.
I suppose it's obvious, but it didn't hit me at first; his
left hand is often straight string bass accompaniment, played,
to my ear, precisely as a bass player would do it-in the all-over-the-strings
style of modern bassmen. His right hand is storming around the
keyboard, and the left hand (maybe more like electric bass,
at that) is right down on the deepest notes. He leans toward
those far-south notes anyway, regardless of the style he's in.
He does play some wild stride on Oh! Lady Be Good,
and other variations in the left hand; but he doesn't ever resort
to spare accent-here -and-there tinkling. That hand is for hooks
and knockout punches, not light jabs.
When did you last hear Ma (He's Making Eyes at Me)
played on a piano? Ordinarily sung by soubrettes, it makes a
fine half-tempo swinger, tongue well in cheek once through,
and then more thoughtful.
Runnin' Wild is suitably wild; it is followed by Van
Heusen's Nancy (With the Laughing Face), an extreme
change of pace, played with great delicacy. Some other tunes
are the lovely I'm Old Fashioned and I'll Close
My Eyes seldom done without a singer, but a pianist's meat.
Anyway, listen to this record; it's by Mr. Jones. He can play.
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was not only perceptive and sensible but extremely well-written. I
knew Paul had met and listened to Mike during the 1994 edition of
the Ultimate Caribbean Jazz Spectacular and liked what he heard. Design
and writing seemed a natural in this instance so I asked him to do
the liner notes as well, his first jazz writing assignment in a minute
or two. He had a good time putting his thoughts on paper in the form
of words instead of drawings and has promised to do more and, of course,
we couldn't be more pleased.
I