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Jimmy Amadie
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ARTIST BIOGRAPHY:
For more than thirty years, Jimmy Amadie has been recognized as one of the premiere jazz educators in the world. But before he dedicated his life to teaching, the 67-year-old Philadelphian was known primarily as a full-speed ahead bebop pianist and sideman to greats like Mel Torme, Woody Herman and Coleman Hawkins.
In the 1960s, Amadie was diagnosed with acute tendonitis, and eventually he was forced to abandon playing the piano entirely. New medical treatments and a series of operations allowed Amadie to return to the ivories around ten years ago, although he could only play once a month, and just a few minutes or so, before unbearable pain would cause him to stop.
Eternally optimistic, Amadie decided in the mid-1990s to record some of his favorite standards plus a few of his original compositions, which he accomplished at a rate of one song-and one take-at a time, with a period of months elapsing before he would be physically able to play again. Amazingly, Amadie's first-ever album, a collection of solo piano performances titled Always with Me, appeared in 1996, earning him accolades for both his sterling musicianship and indefatigable spirit. Reviewers noted Amadie's "elegant touch" and his "strong, swinging expression," and before long he was being featured in the top jazz magazines and on CBS's popular TV program "Sunday Morning with Billy Taylor" and National Public Radio with commentator Scott Simon.
Amadie continued to record his solo work between long intervals of rest, and with the idea of presenting his playing in a bandstand context he hired bassist Steve Gilmore and drummer Bill Goodwin, longtime associates of alto saxophonist Phil Woods, to overdub their rhythm parts on to his piano tracks. The result is In a Trio Setting: A Tribute to Sinatra, which was released in early 2003. Remarkably, Amadie was able to sit in with the rhythm section for two cuts, "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You" and "Here's That Rainy Day," at the end of the recording session. It was the first time in over 40 years that he had played `live' with other musicians.
New therapeutic treatments for Amadie's sore tendons have since evolved, allowing him to play more frequently, so without hesitation the pianist-composer returned to the recording studio beginning in the summer of 2003 to cut another trio album, this time entirely `live' and with the venerable alto saxophonist Phil Woods guesting on half the tracks.
Live at Red Rock is Amadie stretching out and swinging hard like you've never heard him before. All of the album's eight songs clock in at more than five minutes long, and the opener, a smoky original called "The Thought of Losing You," pushes the nine minute mark. It was also the first tune the band recorded at the session, notes Amadie, and it finds the pianist eagerly sparring with Woods, whose inimitable horn playing is as scintillating as ever. "Baby Blue," a finger-popping ballad Amadie penned with Tony Bennett in mind, follows, and again the piano and sax lines intertwine as if the two instrumentalists had been working together for decades.
"I never stopped thinking about playing, and for forty years I've been playing in my head," Amadie says. "The piano doesn't know any lack of practice on my part."
Amadie engages Woods on two other uptempo numbers as well, "This Can't Be Love" and another original, "Phil the Woods with Music," which closes the album. "I'd so looked forward to playing with Phil," Amadie remarks, "and when we gathered in the studio I wanted him to try out this idea I'd been working on, and he nailed it like he'd written the tune himself. For me, it was so great to be in this kind of a musical environment again. Bill Goodwin is the closest drummer alive to Mel Lewis, and Steve Gilmore sticks to you with that big, beautiful tone of his. I'm already thinking about the tunes we'll do on our next live CD."
The trio tracks on Live at Red Rock sparkle, too, and listeners will detect an amiable and relaxed sense of purpose on them. The rhythm section lifts Cole Porter's "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To" and gives Amadie a proper platform for a Monkish introduction and a sprightly series of solos. Readings of "Stella By Starlight" and Ray Noble's "The Very Thought of You," accorded lush harmonizations by the pianist, are simply stunning, and on "Come Rain or Come Shine" Amadie playfully tosses the melody around until he re-positions the songs chords altogether through a boisterous solo that in turn energizes Gilmore for his solo.
As far as musical landscapes go, Live at Red Rock finds a legendary saxman and his rhythm section meeting head-on with a superbly talented pianist who has waited all his life for an opportunity to show the jazz world what he was-and still is: one of the most masterful instrumentalists of his generation.
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