Great Jazz Albums (IMO) #29

Kenny Barron.  Live at Bradley's (1996, released 2002).  Here is a great album from another relatively unsung but brilliant jazz piano player.  In All About Jazz, Barron is described as having an "unmatched ability to mesmerize audiences with his elegant playing, sensitive melodies and infectious rhythms [inspiring] The Los Angeles Times to name him 'one of the top jazz pianists in the world' and Jazz Weekly to call him 'the most lyrical piano player of our time.'”  Live at Bradley's, a set from the storied Greenwich Village club consists of "extended explorations of five varied tunes, featuring the elegant fluidity of Kenny Barron's piano, the fat sound and ever-swinging pulse of Ray Drummond's bass, and the superb intricacy of Ben Riley on drums."  One reviewer wrote that Barron, "one of a handful of truly great living pianists," has "never sounded better."

[Related posts:  Great Jazz Albums,  #1 (Hank Mobley), #2 (Horace Silver), #3 (Sonny Rollins), #4 (Sonny Clark), #5 (Dexter Gordon), #6 (Cannonball Adderley), #7 (Bill Evans), #8 (McCoy Tyner), #9 (Clifford Brown), #10 (Sinatra), #11 (Monk), #12 (Kenny Dorham), #13 (Coltrane), #14 (Duke Ellington), #15 (Miles Davis), #16 (Wayne Shorter), #17 (Dinah Washington); #18 (Sarah Vaughan); #19 (Stan Getz); #20 (Blue Mitchell); #21 (Gene Ammons); #22 (Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers); #23 (Red Garland); #24 (Ella Fitzgerald); #25 (Charlie Parker); #26 (Art Pepper); #27 (Bud Powell); #28 (John Hicks)]