condition (record/cover): NM /  NM

Insert and obi included.

1962, and a pianist with the misfortune of arriving at the exact moment Bill Evans redefined what a piano trio could be. Don Friedman deserved much better than the comparison: Circle Waltz is impressionistic, harmonically adventurous and rhythmically much freer than the Evans trios, partly because Chuck Israels and Pete La Roca refuse to sit still. The title waltz is one of the loveliest things anybody wrote for trio in that decade, and "Sea's Breeze" pushes towards genuine abstraction without ever losing the pulse. Friedman went on to a long career and never quite made a record this perfectly balanced again.

Japanese Riverside pressing. Two catalogue numbers in this sale, both Japanese editions of the same 1962 session. A quiet classic.