Many of modern jazz’s mainstream piano techniques were developed in the 1960s. During that tumultuous decade, jazz musicians and composers questioned and challenged every convention of their genre. The move away from tonalities and song forms rooted firmly in the European harmonic tradition required pianists to re-imagine that most harmonic of instruments and allowed for the creation of a new harmonic language. Among the most significant of the 1960s jazz piano innovators were Bill Evans, McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, and Chick Corea.
UW-Madison Director of Jazz Studies, pianist Dr. Johannes Wallmann demonstrates the major developments in jazz in the 1960s and these different pianists’ approaches to the harmonic revolution in jazz. With his quartet of piano, trumpet, bass, and drums, Wallmann pays tribute to these giants of the jazz piano with a set of music that includes compositions by each pianist as well as by Wallmann.
