Erroll Garner – Gemini (London/MPS, 1972)

Erroll Garner (p, hpd); Ernest McCarty, Jr. (b); Jimmie Smith (d, perc); José Mangual (cga)

Recorded on December 2, 1971

In 1994, Telarc reissued Gemini on CD paired with That's My Kick (MGM, 1967).

Listening to Erroll Garner make music is like sitting in a cool, cascading mountain stream on a hot summer day.  It's an uncomplicated, exhilarating rush -- and a reminder that it's good to be alive.  Garner's music is also a seemingly endless stream of invention and swing.

That said, Garner isn't exactly an artist who's associated with the 1970s.  (He died in 1977.)  But he released two LPs during the decade.  His final record, The Magician (London/MPS, 1974), is excellent -- but I think his penultimate release, Gemini, is even better. It's somehow fitting that Garner's playing never diminished (at least on record).  The man's playing just goes on and on and on and on.

Check out the way Erroll takes "Tea for Two" apart and makes the harpsichord sound as if it's a guitar!