4-5-6 Trio

Editorial Reviews 3 LPs on 2 CDs + 2 Bonus 24 BIT DIGITALLY REMASTERED MONO / STEREO Fred Katz (born February 25, 1919) is an American composer, songwriter, conductor, cellist, pianist, and professor. In jazz, a principal contribution of Katz has been, as Leonard Feather noted, "to put the cello to full use both in arco and pizzicato solos." Oscar Pettiford had already indicated the considerable jazz potential of plucked (pizzicato) cello, but with Oscar, the instrument remained secondary to his primary instrument, the bass. Katz was the first musician to utilize all of the cello in jazz as his chief instrument in that idiom. Katz opinion about his own contribution can be glimpsed from his own statement: "I would like to correct an impression about me that apparently is gaining some acceptance among jazz musicians and critics. That impression is that I am not basically a jazz musician. When they say my music isn t jazz, my answer is, 'what composition are they talking about? I m not concerned with conforming to anybody's concept of what they would like to hear. With all that is in me, I'm trying to write music in the universal sense. If sometimes a 'jazz' phrase makes sense in a composition, I'll write it."