Tete Montoliu

CD version. The Music I Like to Play, Vol. 1 is a solo piano record by Tete Montoliu, recorded in a single day, 1 December 1986, at Barigozzi Studio in Milan and released by Soul Note in 1987. Montoliu, born blind in Barcelona, was by then one of the best known European jazz pianists. The Associated Press obituary of August 1997 counted The Music I Like to Play among his most notable recordings, alongside Tete a Tete and The Man From Barcelona.

Giovanni Bonandrini produced the session, Giancarlo Barigozzi engineered it and Gennaro Carone mastered it at PhonoComp. The same day produced the material for a second volume, issued by Soul Note in 1989 with Oleo, Don't Blame Me, All of You and Cherokee. The AP obituary traces his playing to his study of another blind pianist, Art Tatum, and to a devotion to Thelonious Monk. It dates his international start to a European tour with Lionel Hampton in 1955, followed by work with Dexter Gordon and others. Volume one holds eight pieces of between four and a half and seven minutes. Montoliu opens with his own Don't Smoke Anymore, then takes standards such as It Never Entered My Mind, Alone Together, Old Folks and I'll Remember April. He also plays tunes by fellow jazz musicians, Bobby Hutcherson's Little B's Poem and Benny Golson's Whisper Not, which closes the record. A Time for Love, by Johnny Mandel and Paul Francis Webster, is the longest ballad, at almost seven minutes.

This is the Soul Note CD 121180-2 of the album first released in 1987, with the same eight solo performances.