Fans of pianist Erroll Garner (1923–’77) have rejoiced in recent
years, as reissues and new titles have shone a spotlight on the work of
the legendary Pittsburgh native. The resurgence continues with the
12-album Octave Remastered Series, a joint effort between Mack Avenue
and the Garner estate. The dozen albums—each of which has a previously
unreleased bonus track—are newly restored from analog masters of
releases from the 1960s and 1970s. The series represents a treasure
trove for Garner fans and completists.
The first four titles in the series—Dreamstreet, Closeup In Swing, One World Concert and A New Kind Of Love—were released Sept. 27. The series will continue, with one album released per month—A Night At The Movies, Campus Concert, That’s My Kick, Up In Erroll’s Room, Feeling Is Believing, Gemini, Magician and Gershwin & Kern—leading up to the kick-off of Garner’s centennial celebration in June 2020, concluding on his 100th birthday in June 2021.
The master tapes for all 12 albums were transferred and restored
using Jamie Howarth’s Plangent Process playback system, which removes
machine noise and unwanted fluctuations from the original analog
recordings. “The experience of it is more like you’re listening to http://bit.ly/30DYfg5" rel="nofollow - Garner
through the monitors in a professional studio, rather than listening to
him off the tape copy,” said Peter Lockhart, senior producer of the
project and vice president of Octave Music.
Lockhart originally began working on the Garner archives in 2015
with pianist Geri Allen, then director of jazz studies at the University
of Pittsburgh. “Geri was our creative center and our ‘North Star’ in
terms of the Garner project,” he said. “After she passed [on June 27,
2017], we were trying to figure out where to go from there. Geri had
introduced us to Christian Sands after a three-piano Garner tribute they
did with Jason Moran at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 2015, so we
started talking to Christian. Then early last year, he became our
creative ambassador. Christian is very passionate about performing
Garner’s music in concert with his High Wire Trio, and he’s been a great
ambassador for the Garner project.”
In 1959, Garner successfully sued Columbia Records to remove an
album the company had released without his permission. Garner and his
manager, Martha Glaser, subsequently founded and launched Octave
Records, whose 12 releases make up the Octave Remastered Series.
The reissue of Dreamstreet contains the bonus track “By Chance,” an engaging, medium-tempo http://bit.ly/2KDxWBP" rel="nofollow - Garner original, while Closeup In Swing includes “Octave 103,” another original that showcases the pianist’s impeccable sense of time. One World Concert, recorded in Seattle at the 1962 World’s Fair, includes the hauntingly beautiful Garner ballad “Other Voices,” and A New Kind Of Love, featuring the pianist with a 35-piece orchestra, includes a new trio version of “Paris Mist.”
Lockhart explained that many of Garner’s spontaneous intros to
tunes on the live recordings were cut to fit the time limitation of the
LP format. Those same off-the-cuff intros have been restored for the new
releases. “For instance, there’s an extra minute of an introduction for
‘The Way You Look Tonight,’ an extended introduction for ‘Sweet And
Lovely’ and a really amazing one for ‘Mack The Knife,’ where he goes
through these progressions and modulations that are really hip and that
no one’s ever heard before.
“It’s such a unique catalog,” Lockhart continued. “There are so few
artist-owned catalogs that are this important and this large and have
so much unexplored material to work with. And it’s not just the music
but a million pieces of paper—all of his telegrams and correspondence,
contracts, pictures, and then there’s his clothing, jewelry, artwork.
There’s so many things to explore, and we’re trying to encourage more
people to go to the [Erroll Garner Archive at the University of
Pittsburgh] and engage in scholarship about his life and his work.”