For as long as I can remember, I envisioned myself as a jazz pianist playing a beautiful grand piano with my own group in an elegant lounge at an upscale hotel. When a part of that dream came along, I jumped at the chance to play a weekly gig with my own group at the Warwick Hotel in New York City. The room was elegant and although the piano was not beautiful nor a grand, we made music with it anyway. Each Friday night we turned this intimate space into a jazz room and filled three sets with classic jazz standards, less familiar jazz tunes and my own original compositions.
Since we were performing at a bar in a hotel , the complexion of the gig changed from week to week: some weeks everyone listened, other weeks were packed and noisy and no one clapped until the end of each set, but most weeks it was a healthy mix of all of the above. The only constant was our quartet - showing up every week and playing our hearts out no matter what the crowd was like or whether or not the piano had been tuned.
Stan and I often commented that many of our favorite jazz CDs happen to be live recordings where you experience the energy, the excitement and the spontaneity of being there. with that "live" experience comes the familiar sounds out of the slightly out of tune barroom piano, the occasional clinking of glasses and sporadic audience chatter. As Stan recorded many of our live performances at the hotel on mini-disc, the idea came about to release a live CD for our year long engagement. So welcome to a typical set of "The Linda Presgrave Quartet" on any given evening - the only difference is that you will have to provide your own glass of wine.
