Herbie Nichols with Art Blakey

This vinyl reissue has some of the very finest piano trio jazz of the 1950s by the original composer and pianist Herbie Nichols with drummer Art Blakey.

The Prophetic Herbie Nichols Volume 1 & 2 (Blue Note, 2021)

The strange thing about Herbie Nichols is not that he largely went unrecognized in his lifetime, but that he still is. I remember discovering him by chance when I was well into jazz and had heard all the important recordings of Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Herbie Hancock and a lot of the other great pianists.

Faced with his perfect and original music some of which can be heard on this vinyl reissue I was amazed that I had never heard of or read about him before. In my opinion he should be as well-known as Monk and Powell. He is at there level.

You can hear it on this album recorded in 1955 with a trio with bassist Al McKibbon and drummer Art Blakey. Nichols writes songs as memorable as those by Monk. The most famous one is Lady Sings the Blues which Billie Holiday recorded. It is not included here but many other are which deserves to be just as well-known. Among my own favorites are the medium tempo very relaxed Double Exposure and Shuffle Montgomery on which Nichols explore the rhythmic and harmonic material provided by his themes.

One of the great

With Monk Nichols also shares a certain quirkiness both in his writing and playing. Meaning that there are often melodic, rhythmic and harmonic surprises which makes his songs original. He also leaves a lot of room for Blakey to interact, just as Monk had done on his trio recordings with Blakey. Another characteristic Nichols shares with Monk is the connection to older styles of music. In their modernism you can also hear Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Teddy Wilson somewhere.

Nichols made another recording session for Blue Note in 1956 with drummer Max Roach which is just as great as this one, and a final recording for Bethlehem in 1957 with Dannie Richmond on drums, and then he died from leukemia in 1963 at 44 years of age.

Before he died Nichols was interviewed by writer A B Spellman in an article later published in the book Four Lives in the Bebop Business (1966). Nichols was clearly frustrated by not being recognized. He blames older musicians for not giving recognition to their juniors, and critics for not having any musical education.

It is hard to tell why certain musicians, like Nichols, never had their deserved due. He was never a part of a movement like Powell and Monk were with bebop, or Blakey and Horace Silver with hard bop. Maybe he was just too unique. Now and then when his music is reissued it gets praised and discovered again, but then it seems to drift in oblivion again, and I do not think you will ever see him included in a list of the most important jazz pianists which I think he should be. And if you want to know just how good he is this is a good place to start.