Mike Jones Live at Steinway Hall...Liner Notes

Live at Steinway Hall

liner notes

Hank's notes:

More about Mike Jones. This is his third CHIAROSCURO release, and it may well be his most interesting. It not only shows him at this best, but also demonstrates his encyclodpedic knowledge of songs, his ability to interpret them in an exciting way, and present a flawless seventy minute program that was well-paced and interesting, from beginning to end.

I have no idea if he'd picked out the nine songs and two medleys before he sat down at the piano, or if he knew exactly what he'd play, and had been rehearsing it day after day for weeks on end. I tend to doubt it. I didn't see a list anywhere, and Mike doesn't seem to operate that way. He's more of a whatever happens, happens, kind of guy. But no matter, even if he'd been practicing the songs for weeks, the result was still the same; an exceptional performance.

In many ways, the strength of Mike's playing is also one of his weaknesses, at least from a commercial standpoint. All he does is play songs, usually older songs. He's an interpreter of the compositions of others,. Mike is one of those artists who is primarily an interpreter, not a composer. Most of the virtuoso pianists, in almost any form of music, fall into that category; there have been few monumental performers who wrote exceptional, lasting compositions. In this century, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Fats Waller come to mind as two who did, and Vladimir Horowitz and Art Tatum as two who didn't.

But in American music today, this is not fashionable, and hasn't been for many years. It won't be fashionable in 2000 or 2001 either. Maybe things will turn around someday, but not today. Not that people aren't making solo piano recordings, they are, good ones, bad ones and all kinds in between, but few pianists make a CD like record companies want original compositions and most artists are willing to oblige, for all the usual reasons.

This is not a good time for nice straight ahead songs with melodies. People don't seem much interested in hearing a great pianist who plays without gimmicks; not in jazz, not in pop, and certainly not on Broadway. There are still some country writers who produce songs, but as country tries to go more and more pop, these writers will fall by the wayside, as they did in pip and on Broadway in the 1960's and 1970's. I'm sorry to have to say this, but just in case you don't know, the superstar pop singers of the last thirty years, men and women who were compositionally challenged, but wrote songs anyway, are just not quite as good as the men and women who produced the great American songbook.

Piano Playing The same kind of people write for Broadway, and I don't care what the box office says, Andrew Lloyd Webber is not Cole Porter, and Elton John's score for The Lion King can't even take a nip out of Fritz Loewe's My Fair Lady. All this means is that we're running out of songs. Of course, there are some wonderful songs being written for musical theater; real songs, not grandiose puffery that requires a few million dollars worth of sets and helicopters on stage to be effective, but just good, traditional songs. You find these in fine shows that never make their way to Broadway. But, if a song is only heard in small theatres in New Jersey, Connecticut, or off-Broadway, as good as it might be, it has little chance of becoming a standard; a song that in fifty years, a Mike Jones, Jr. might play with the same passion that can be heard on this CD. This is a pity.

There are hundreds of jazz standards that cram the fake books. Some of these compositions are exceptional, but most aren't . They just aren't that interesting, except possibly to the person playing them. What is interesting, however, at least to me, is a dazzling artist interpreting good songs; like Mike Jones does here. Every note he played that night at Steinway Hall is on this CD. There have been no edits, nothing changed, and nothing replaced in the music. John Kiehl did remove some of the space between selections, but that's about it.

If one were to compare this performance with one that Mike might do in a fine piano room in Las Vegas, or in The Crystal Bar aboard the QE2, during The floating Jazz Festival, the only difference is the piano. A flawless Steinway D is not always available. Yet, if you were to hear Mike live in any decent venue, this is the kind of performance you would hear. In this case we were lucky: a flawless performance on a perfect instrument that was honestly recorded and faithfully reproduced.

None of this would have been possible without the assistance of Steinway & Sons and their staff. We'd particularly like to thank Betsy Hirsch, who heard one of Mike's CDs and offered the hall to us, and Peter Goodrich, who not only authorized the use of the Steinway Hall name on the booklet cover, but has also arranged for us to do another CHIAROSCURO recording at Steinway Hall in January 2000. What a great way to begin the year!

MIKE'S NOTES:

A few years ago, I got a call from Betsy Hirsch at Steinway & Sons. Stranger things have happened, but it seemed her father had heard me on the radio in Buffalo, New York, my hometown, came to see me at a club appearance, bought two copies of each of my CDs, and sent them to Betsy. She was calling to ask if I would be interested in performing at Steinway Hall. Of course, I jumped at the chance. Who wouldn't want an opportunity to play a brand new Steinway concert grand in such a legendary setting.

I immediately called my friends at CHIAROSCURO, and asked if arrangements could be made to record my encounter with Steinway D. They not only recorded the recital, but hosted a reception for a room full of invited guests. The piano was incredible, the sound was great, and the audience was very generous. I started to play, and about seventy minutes later I stopped. Every note I played is on this CD, I hope you like it.

Special thanks must go to Andy, Teresa and Tim Jones, who made the trip from Buffalo, even though they'd heard me play before, John Kielhl, Jackie Warren, Jon Bates, and everyone else at CHIAROSCURO. I'm also very grateful to Charlie Petri, Barbara Lynch-Petri, Dave and Judy Petri, Larry and Maria Curtis, Joe Zito, Tom O'Donohue, and everyone else who puts up with me.

The music on this CD is dedicated to Patrick Joseph Jones.

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