Frank Strazzeri - Strazzatonic (Taurus / Frames / View From Within) (2016)

After his arrival in Los Angeles late in 1959, the versatile and impressive work of upstate New Yorker, pianist-composer Frank Strazzeri (1930-2014), began to earn him a fast reputation, and his playing in local jazz groups and on albums by Terry Gibbs, Herb Ellis, Red Mitchell, Harold Land, Carmell Jones and others, didn t go unnoticed.
An utterly devoted jazz musician, he transformed his many influences, among them Bud Powell, Horace Silver, Carl Perkins, Hank Jones, into an inventive, direct, exciting, cliché-free personal expression, distinguished by an absence of superfluous ges- ture, and delivered with a crisp, bright sound in medium and fast tempos. And he was also to reveal a considerable talent as a composer on his own records.
On the three albums included here, Taurus (1973), Frames (1975) and After the Rain (1975), he wrote all of the material and used, including Don Menza, Frank Rosolino, Gary Barone, Conte Candoli, Gene Cherico and Bobby Shew, who spoke glowingly of him as a giant, a master, an incredibly underrated player, a complete genius. These albums show why he was so revered by his peers.

1.01 - Frank Strazzeri - Taurus (4:42)
1.02 - Frank Strazzeri - Lazy Moments (4:24)
1.03 - Frank Strazzeri - Strazzatonic (9:13)
1.04 - Frank Strazzeri - Calcutta (5:22)
1.05 - Frank Strazzeri - Sphinx (7:38)
1.06 - Frank Strazzeri - View from Within (5:59)
1.07 - Frank Strazzeri - Injun-Jo (6:00)
1.08 - Frank Strazzeri - Ballad of the Matador (6:44)
1.09 - Frank Strazzeri - Jo Gee (8:07)
2.10 - Frank Strazzeri - La Mosca (7:06)
2.11 - Frank Strazzeri - Frames (6:42)
2.12 - Frank Strazzeri - Evening in Madrid (6:09)
2.13 - Frank Strazzeri - After the Rain (4:31)
2.14 - Frank Strazzeri - Philadelphia Flyer (9:07)
2.15 - Frank Strazzeri - Rush Hour (8:33)
2.16 - Frank Strazzeri - Blue Dawn (4:51)
2.17 - Frank Strazzeri - The Third Eye (6:40)
2.18 - Frank Strazzeri - Cloudburst (9:54)