Eugen Cicero - In Town (1965/2016) [HDtracks]

The Romanian Eugen Cicero was a Wunderkind, performing his first piano concert with a symphony orchestra at the age of six. His first SABA/MPS album, Rokoko Jazz sold over a million copies. Cicero was acknowledged as an “all-around entertainer, someone who gives a damn about stylistic borders and takes whatever is useful, from Bach to Cole Porter”. The Cole Porter classic It’s De-Lovely shows the man can swing, and with tips of the hat to Errol Garner and George Shearing, knows his jazz piano. Cicero and the MPS “house rhythm section” of bassist Peter Witte and drummer Charly Antolini display an uncanny empathy throughout. Autumn Leaves sounds as if Schuman’s Kinderscenen might have been played out in Harlem. Und Bach? from Johann Sebastian’s Prelude in C Minor rates as “the most intensive and dynamic of the wave of modern Bach-to-jazz recordings (Joachim E. Berendt). Cicero and co garnish Hello Dolly with the appropriate Broadway treatment; his interpretation of pianist Randy Weston’s Little Niles owes as much to Chopin as to Afro-American jazz, while Por Favor is simply high entertainment. Amazing music by a pianist with the sensibilities of the great classical and jazz interpreters at his fingertips.