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Alone Together
Ben Aranov & Jay Leonhart

After establishing himself in the Los Angeles jazz scene, Ben Aronov moved to New York City in 1960. He spent his first days earning a Bachelor of Music at the Manhattan School of Music and was welcomed into the local music world with a wide variety of jobs —from accompanying star vocalists to joining the rhythm sections of well-known jazzmen, with some solo piano gigs added to the mix. Eventually, he found himself playing with bassist Jay Leonhart, who came to New York a few years later. Jay had studied at the Peabody Institute in his native Baltimore, as well as the Berklee School of Music in Boston and Oscar Peterson's Advanced School of Contemporary Music in Toronto. While they were establishing separate careers as much-in-demand jazz and studio musicians, Ben and Jay struck up a friendship, both musical and personal, and by the 1970s, they occasionally played in New York jazz clubs as a duo.

In 1982, on one of these jobs at Zinno's in Greenwich Village, producer Roger Rhodes (also a recording engineer, bassist, and music publisher) dropped in to hear their music, having recorded each of them on sessions in New York studios. Roger had long been an admirer of their individual playing, and was delighted to hear how well Jay and Ben fit together musically. He decided they should be recorded, and got them up to the now legendary RCA studio A, where they taped the music that is presented here.

For a variety of reasons, the project languished for 24 years. Recently, Roger decided to revive it. With the new technology that has become available, he re-mastered the original tapes, and the sound on the resulting compact disc is remarkable in its clarity and tone quality.

The choice of material is rich, and the music is wonderful. Ben's approach to each piece is imaginative and sure. He displays an exquisite touch and a seemingly effortless flow of ideas. Jay matches him perfectly. He accompanies with great intuition, takes the lead beautifully when it is appropriate to do so, and his lyrical solos fit with Ben's playing the way a hand fits a glove.

Ben and Jay explore a wide range of genres on these selections. In both standard songs and originals, they include subtle homages to Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Lennie Tristano, Bill Evans, Oscar Pettiford, and Ray Brown, to name just a few. Their collaboration is both serious and good fun, a poignant musical conversation between two good friends.

In the years since this music was recorded, Ben covered many musical bases in New York, including the long Broadway run of the musical "Cats," and has subsequently moved to the south of France with his wife, Nicole. Operating from there, he continues a busy life as a world-class jazz pianist. Jay continues his career in New York City as a first-call studio musician and jazzman. He has also developed his singing and song-writing abilities into a number of delightful solo record albums and one-man shows. Bill Crow

Alone Together — the beautiful Schwartz and Dietz song — became the title of this recording from the very beginning. Not only has this song been a favorite of mine for 50 years, but the title also conveys the ambience of the recording itself —two extraordinarily talented musicians alone together in a studio designed for a full symphony orchestra. I could have chosen any small studio, but I have always believed that environment affects performance and in RCA's Studio A, the room provided an enormous amount of acoustic feedback, freeing the players to express themselves lyrically.

For those interested in the technical aspects of this recording, I used three now-rare microphones: two Neumann M49s about eight feet in front of the Steinway Model D and a Sennheiser MKH405 on the bass. The medium was 15ips-4-track Dolby A. In re-mastering, I had Mark Wilder at Sony Music Studios "bake" the masters, to stabilize the emulsion, and transfer them to 24bit/48kHz digital files. The genius of mastering engineer Oscar Zambrano brought back all the detail and quality of the original. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

- Roger Rhodes

Musicians:

BEN ARANOV piano
JAY LEONHART bass

Record Label: WolfRose Records
Catalog # WRJ6001

Executive Producer: Rhoda Farkas Rhodes
Recorded by Roger Rhodes, April 29, 1982 at RCA Studio A, NYC

PRICE: $15

1. Alone Together (Schwartz/Dietz) 5:19
2. Virgo (Shorter) 5:47
3. The Girl Next Door Blane/Martin) 5:05
4. A Child Is Born (Thad Jones) 6:46
5. Come Rain or Come Shine (Mercer/Arlen) 5:51
6. Bye (Aronov) 6:32
7. This Is New (Weill/Ira Gershwin) 6:35
8. Pettiford Brown (Leonhart) 3:57
9. Como En Vietnam (Swallow) 6:55
10. My One And Only Love (Mellin/Wood) 3:33
11. April (Tristano) 4:57
12. Parallel Universes (Leonhart) 5:00
13. One For The Rhode (Aronov) 5:09

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