Ehud Asherie: Welcome to New York

"Young jazz musicians often try to become their idols. In the early Thirties, Ben Webster got so caught up in trying to sound like Coleman Hawkins that his friend Clyde Hart had to remind him that (in Emerson's words) imitation is suicide. Ehud Asherie knows better. Ask him nicely, and he'll play Fats Waller's trademark walking-down-the-stairs treble passage perfectly, but he is no musical forger or impersonator. He has his own voice — no, voices — deep and satisfying. His playing draws on the nuances and gestures of his great forebears — to honor them but, more importantly, to create something new. On the street where he lives, the Stride masters and the bebop innovators hang out together, and no one says that there is only one way to play. Ehud began by listening to a Monk album he found in his parents' attic and then 'moved backward' to the intricacies of swing piano, but he will tell you that playing Harlem Strut is not any easier than Un Poco Loco, just different. And, as he says, 'What could be hipper than Art Tatum?'" (CD notes by Michael Steinman).
View catalog record here!