John Lewis

condition (record/cover): NM / NM

Insert and obi included.

1959: John Lewis steps outside the Modern Jazz Quartet's tuxedo for a small-group Atlantic date of exactly what the title promises - improvised meditations, structural excursions, the blues examined through the clearest lens in jazz. Lewis's reputation for restraint has always hidden how radical his economy actually was: every note load-bearing, every silence composed, swing distilled to its essence rather than displayed - a minimalism decades before the word, achieved inside the most swinging tradition there is. Away from the MJQ format and Milt Jackson's counterweight, the same mind works with looser sleeves, and the results are quietly captivating: standards pared to their skeletons and found still standing, blues reduced to gesture and found still burning.

Japanese Atlantic pressing, silent surfaces for music built on space. For pianophiles, MJQ devotees, and anyone who suspects that maximum taste can be its own kind of daring. It can, and this record is the proof - delivered, naturally, without raising its voice.