A new approach

Since my jazz arranging kept me away from the piano for so long, I’ve found myself curiously unmotivated to sit down and play. Oh, I have sat down and played some, for sure, even making a fair go at a few tunes I remain familiar with and just enjoy hearing on occasion. But I have not done anything constructive to improve my playing in probably the last six months.

On a whim, and because it was cheap, I picked up Oscar Peterson Plays the Duke Ellington Songbook CD. And while I thought this was him soloing, it turns out to be two of Oscar’s trios playing twelve songs each. And it is simply wonderful. Now, I’ve had the Oscar Peterson Plays Duke Ellington transcriptions forever, and long since relegated it to the “when I’m concert pianist level, maybe I’ll pull this out” section of my music book library. But taking a look at it again while listening to my new CD yesterday, it didn’t look nearly as foreboding as I remember it. And while it does not appear that the transcriptions in the above-mentioned book are from any of the recordings in the above-mentioned CD, it looks like they might be similar enough that I’ll be able to get something put together by listening to the CD and then sitting at the piano.

At any rate, I’ve decided to take a new approach to learning piano over the summer, namely, I’m going to learn to play a few Ellington tunes in the style of OP. Wish me luck.