Tommy Flanagan
Piano Solo on
Blue 7

About

Taking the 2nd solo, this piano improvisation spans three choruses of the 12-bar blues at a medium swing tempo of 133 BPM. The collective interplay between the three soloists creates a performance that functions almost as a suite, each musician's contribution building upon and extending the others'. This is the most concise solo on the recording, making every phrase count within a compact space. The 12-bar blues form provides a familiar harmonic framework that invites inventive melodic and rhythmic exploration. Situated between Sonny Rollins's tenor sax solo and Max Roach's turn on drums, it occupies a pivotal spot in the arrangement.

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