Top jazz trios piano, bass, drums on vinyl?

Cecil Taylor's "Love For Sale" consists of trio and quintet. Four out of the six tracks are trio recordings. This is Cecil in 1959 when he was still playing standard tunes before he went to the stratosphere, so even if you're adverse to avant-garde jazz this is still quite accessible and adventurous at the same time. Early Cecil was never fortunate enough to record with a good piano nor a good engineer so his early works cannot be qualified as "audiophile" recordings. But with such amazing music by one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, it hardly matters to me.

The great Herbie Nichols had a 1957 trio recording on the Bethlehem label called "The Bethlehem Years." Nichols was an unheralded figure with a unique sound. In this record, he teams up with George Duvivier on bass and Danny Richmond on drums. Majority of the tunes are composed by Nichols. Worth checking out.

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Wrm57: "Anything by Herbie Nichols. Hints of Monk's angularity, humor, and space with a touch of Tatum. Brilliant stuff. The Mosaic 3-LP box is one of my favs."

I don't have the Mosaic but the Blue Note twofer compilation from the 70's or 80's is one of my favorite piano records and it sits quite well along with anything by Powell or Monk. Brilliant, indeed.

John Lewis is another favorite but I can't remember if he made any pure trio recording. His "Improvised Meditations and Excursions" has a couple trio tracks and the solo album "John Lewis Piano," also on Atlantic, is quite swell. What an elegant player. His autumnal recording "Evolution," CD only, is achingly beautiful.

You mentioned Tatum and his group "masterpiece" recordings on Pablo are crown jewels by the giant. His grouping with Ben Webster is among the must listen recordings.

Going back a little earlier, the greatest pianist before Tatum would have to be Earl Hines. He even made an audiophile recording for M&K "For Fatha" playing some modern tunes. His "Blue Monk" is a joy.

Lennie Tristano's Atlantic twofer is another must have. The first four tracks never seize to amaze me whenever I hear them. I think he might have made a couple trio recordings but none, musically, can touch the Atlantic. Utterly brilliant.

I need to go spin some tunes now. Chiao.

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I am a fan of Marilyn Crispell, who is one of the best post-Cecil Taylor pianists of our time but she's much more lyrical and delicate particularly in her ballads. It's misleading to called her a Taylor follower as the influence has more to do with their classical background than in style. In recent years she has added a sizable output on ballads in her catalog, which is closer to her other influence in spirit, John Coltrane. Here's an artist fusing the aesthetics of Taylor with the spirituality of Trane and her own her sensitivity. Her trio recordings with bassist Gary Peacock and the late great drummer Paul Motion on ECM are not to be missed. The presence of Motion, unsurprisingly, reminds listeners of the famous Bill Evans trio.

Here's a tracking called "Voices From the Past" from her excellent album "Amaryllis" from 2001. Not sure if it is available on vinyl, along with her other ECM recordings. It really doesn't matter to me, I just go for the music so I bought the CD. Sigh...so much music, so little time...

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05-17-13: Tubegroover: "if you like jazz look for American jazz artists. The Japanese artists just don't get jazz IMHO."

I disagree. Music from the Three Blind Mice label might be boring but to blanketly dismiss all Japanese jazz musicians?

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