Critical Acclaim for Denny Zeitlin’s “Columbia Years” Recordings and Performances

BILL EVANS: [Downbeat Blindfold Test, listening to Jeremy Steig’s LP “Flute Fever,” featuring Denny Zeitlin] “…the piano player is also great.”

THELONIOUS MONK: [Downbeat Blindfold Test, listening to Denny Zeitlin’s LP “Carnival”] “Hey play that again…(later.) Yeah! He sounds like a piano player! (hums theme) …and he can play it; you know what’s happening with this one. Yeah, he was on a Bobby Timmons kick. He knows what’s happening.”

DOWNBEAT: “The Zeitlin trio…a stunning display of instrumental virtuosity, emotional depth, and musicality…Zeitlin’s piano is impeccable…introspective, filled with joy, bitingly mocking, always intelligent and emotional.”

NEW YORK TIMES, John S. Wilson: “…among the few contemporary jazz pianists who have the imagination, discipline, and technique to rise above the competent but routine level that most of them appear willing to settle for.”

NEWSWEEK: “What marks all of Zeitlin’s work and playing…is a sense of journey, but one complete with arrival as well as departure.”

LEONARD FEATHER, Editor of Encyclopedia of Jazz and syndicated newspaper columnist: “(at the Monterey Jazz Festival) Denny Zeitlin topped his Newport triumph…pianist of the year…the most versatile young pianist to come to prominence in the early 1960’s.”

CUE: “The most inventive jazz pianist in at least two decades.”

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