Clare Fischer - One to Get Ready, Four to Go!Early Clare Fischer GemReview by Simon Pilbrow - Jan 18 2015It was a pleasure to recently discover this early Clare Fischer gem. Fischer's music spans so many genres within and outside of jazz, and in this recording Clare shows the listener some of what his piano playing was like in his mid-thirties and where his musical mind was venturing. On this album there are solo piano passages recorded in 1964-5, and two quartet excursions from 1963. In the quartet were his colleague and long term friend, reed master Gary Foster, with whom he would collaborate for half a century, the brilliant bassist Bobby West and less well known drummer Jim Keltner. There is a tender ballad interpretation of Lover Man, featuring Gary Foster's fine tenor, in the early phase of his distinguished career, when the formative influence of early Getz was still palpable. A few years later, the influence of Warne Marsh would further shape and mature Foster's style and approach to improvisation. Free Ways is a completely free improvisationThe Free Ways track is very revealing - evidently Fischer's second recorded free improvisation, and Foster's first - which is remarkable given the quality of the music that emerged. Everyone seemed `on the same page' musically and what developed over nearly seventeen minutes is a very strong and coherent statement of free improvisation, covering many moods, and swings hard! This is a fine musical link between Intuition (Lennie Tristano, 1949) and the Ne Plus Ultra recording (Marsh/Foster, 1968). It has plenty of fine interplay between four listening musicians, and shows a wide range of Fischer's pianistic brilliance, musical imagination, spontaneity and strong musical personality, as well as some quite expressive tenor sounds from Foster and arco bass playing from West.If the most daring and risk-taking track was Free Ways, the most beautiful track would have to be his solo Liz Anne, the lovely jazz waltz tune by vibraphonist Cal Tjader with whom Clare and Gary also had long associations. Fischer finds great depth of beauty in the harmonies of this great song, which he later explored to advantage in the recording made by his `Thesaurus' big band. Also poignantly beautiful is the solo piano playing on In Memoriam:JFK and RFK. Comparisons with Bill Evans are valid, not because Clare or Bill influenced one another, but they shared some common musical roots and a strong attention to harmonic and melodic beauty, thoughtful voice leading and were each capable of a great deal of emotional expression. Evans is by far the better known and more tangibly influential, and his place in the jazz story is secure. Historically, both men can lay claim to being among jazz music's finest composers. It remains to be seen whether future listeners to Clare Fischer's superb musical legacy will afford him and his music the high esteem they deserve.Gary Foster penned the liner notes in 1968, and his articulate recollections and reflections on the music are excellent, and as a participant on the recording, are particularly insightful and informative.