Herbie Nichols

小简介
1919年出生的Herbie Nichols被认为是在作曲上对Bebop运动有极大的影响的作曲家，但矛盾的是在整个四○到五○年代里，Herbie Nichols却坚持将演奏与发表作品的风格保持在Swing与Dixieland的范畴里。Herbie Nichols发表的作品屈指可数，最精彩的莫过於1955年与1956年在Blue Note旗下发表的两张专辑，还有在Savoy旗下录製的四重奏唱片。但是Herbie Nichols的作曲方向却得到Thelonious Monk与欧洲现代爵士乐手们的群起呼应，尤其是Herbie Nichols自由地从Swing与Dixieland里取材，处理声线流动与节奏的方式可说是影响深远。
他一生中真正掛头牌录音的次数只有六次，全部都是以三重奏的型式完成，幸运的是六次录音都有极具功力的乐手与他一同合作。「蓝调之音」唱片很幸运保有这六次录音中的四次，将之集合起来正是本套的三张唱片。这三张唱片在他以四十四岁英年早逝於白血病之时，一直都未卖得太好，正应验了经典爵士唱片只能常卖不能大卖的老话。Herbie Nichols的音乐和五○年代的爵士风格总有距离。他不那么咆勃，又不那么摇摆，由於他受过很高的教育，个性又较沉静，所以音乐也和他的兴趣一样，有诗意又讲究智性。
One of jazzs most tragically overlooked geniuses, Herbie Nichols was a highly original piano stylist and a composer of tremendous imagination and eclecticism. He wasnt known widely enough to exert much influence in either department, but his music eventually attracted a rabid cult following, though not quite the wide exposure it deserved.
Nichols was born January 3, 1919, in New York and began playing piano at age nine, later studying at C.C.N.Y. After serving in World War II, Nichols played with a number of different groups and was in on the ground floor of the bebop scene. However, to pay the bills he later focused on Dixieland ensembles; his own music — a blend of Dixieland, swing, West Indian folk, Monk-like angularity, European classical harmonies via Satie and Bartók, and unorthodox structures — was simply too unclassifiable and complex to make much sense to jazz audiences of the time. Mary Lou Williams was the first to record a Nichols composition — Stennell, retitled Opus Z, in 1951; yet aside from the song he wrote for Billie Holiday, Lady Sings the Blues, none of Nichols work got enough attention to really catch on.
He signed with Blue Note and recorded three brilliant piano trio albums from 1955-1956, adding another one for Bethlehem in late 1957. Nichols languished in obscurity after those sessions, though; sadly, just when he was beginning to find a following among several of the new things adventurous, up-and-coming stars, he was stricken with leukemia and died on April 12, 1963. In the years that followed, Nichols became a favorite composer in avant-garde circles, with tributes to his sorely neglected legacy coming from artists like Misha Mengelberg and Roswell Rudd. He also inspired a repertory group, called the Herbie Nichols Project, and most of his recordings were reissued on CD.