Girl Talk

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Oscar Peterson claimed that the “Exclusively for My Friends” series was the best work of his career. Released in 1968, the series’ second installment cherry-picks live performances from 1965 to 1968 at the state-of-the-art home studio of MPS Records' Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer; each show had a small invited audience. A pianist of formidable power, Peterson is joined by bassists Ray Brown or Sam Jones and drummers Bobby Durham or Louis Hayes. Peterson comes out swinging for the fences on “On a Clear Day (You Can See Forever)” with a jaunty right hand knocking out the melody. Peterson and the band stretch out for a slow-building version of “I’m in the Mood for Love” with the pianist coloring, adding thrilling runs, digging into the blues, and generally turning the whole thing inside out. Along the same lines but featuring only Peterson is the dazzling “I Concentrate on You/Moon River.” Regardless of source material, Peterson and the band did their thing (never more so than on the title cut), showing the pianist at the height of his powers. It's now newly remastered and in the digital format for the first time.

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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