On Treasure Island
LP Aimez-vous le jazz nº8, CBS 62 876
Around 1970, Teddy Wilson performed solo in a bar only a stone’s throw away from where I lived here in Malmö, Sweden. I also heard him play with an all-star band in Spain a couple of years later. How his playing was compared to those early piano solos I can’t say.
I’ve mostly dug him in the small band recording of the thirties and, of course, in Benny Goodman’s trio and quartet. His precise playing and his inventive yet logical improvisations stand out.
This is not to mention his swing and the fact that he shows up everywhere through the history of jazz.
Here he is solo in 1935, and those recordings are a treasure. He’s easy to follow on a medium-fast tempo tune like this, and there is the freshness of a great talent then newly discovered by the jazz world.