Hal Galper's third album as a leader, which also was his third and final recording for the
Mainstream label, finds him making a bit of a change. It was at this point in his career that he made a clean break from playing electric piano at all, becoming exclusively an acoustic pianist. With bassist
Dave Holland and drummer
Bill Goodwin (the latter with whom he would be reunited for a few years when he replaced
Mike Melillo in
Phil Woods' group)
Galper delves extensively into a challenging set of originals, beginning with the introspective, driving
"Inner Journey." The leader's approach to the standard
"My Funny Valentine" is far darker than typical arrangements, with plenty of twists thrown in for good measure. At the end of the disc, on both the album jacket and the record label, the last two songs are not heard in the order shown in print.
Galper's cerebral
"Wandering Spirit" precedes, not follows,
Duke Ellington's
"Take the Coltrane" (which is misidentified as
"Taking the Coltrane"). The pianist's rapid-fire treatment of
Ellington's blues riff takes an adventurous path, with plenty of solo space for
Holland and a series of breaks by
Galper and
Goodwin. With the demise of
Mainstream, this LP is getting more difficult to acquire and it remains one of the very best recording from
Hal Galper's early days as a leader. ~ Ken Dryden
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