Tommy Flanagan
Piano Solo on
You Don't Know What Love Is

About

Closing out the solo section, this piano improvisation spans a half chorus of the 32-bar AABA form at a ballad tempo of 72 BPM. Tommy Flanagan's half-chorus piano solo provides a delicate, harmonically sophisticated complement, his gentle touch and refined sensibility perfectly suited to the ballad context. This is the most concise solo on the recording, making every phrase count within a compact space. The 32-bar AABA form, a staple of the Great American Songbook, offers both structural clarity and ample harmonic terrain for improvisation. Coming after Sonny Rollins's tenor sax solo, this is the final improvisation before the ensemble returns to the head.

Tommy Flanagan was 25 to 26 years old at the time.