One Entrance, Many Exits

THERE IS CAUSE TO REJOICE HERE. AN ELUSIVE JAZZ LEGEND HAS COME INTO FOCUS.

Those familiar with Mal Waldron will expect him to say more about himself through his piano than any essay can verify. The music he plays is entirely autobiographical, reflecting one facet or another of this brilliant, original artist. He has always been his own man—his music surely challenges classification. Critic Nat Hentoff describes him as "one of the most probing and unpredictable forces in modern jazz."

The reputation enjoyed by Waldron among musicians has been impressive through the years, and he is even more awesome today, as he is still growing today, as he is still growing and maturing in the eighties. His unique approach and compositional gifts place him in company with two idiosyncratic contemporaries—Andrew Hill and Thelonius Monk (a mandarin of the piano) who, likewise, have not spawned a perceivable school of followers in the magnitude, for instance, of the influential James P. Johnson, Art Tatum or Bill Evans in their respective generations. Despite their specialized niches, Waldron articulates the nature and process of creative music, unraveling a particular strand of jazz history.

--Herb Wong, Jazz Expert