Cedar Walton “Animation/Soundscapes”

Who says you can’t always get what you want?

A while back I wrote about the two little-known Cedar Walton albums on Columbia, Animation (Columbia, 1978) and Soundscapes (Columbia, 1980), decrying in my usual fashion that all of this forgotten music had not been made available on CD and was unlikely to ever see life in the digital age.

Well, in a nice way of proving me totally wrong, Britain’s always reliable Soul Brother Records paired up the composer/keyboardist’s two most provocative albums on one CD that’s now available for all the world to hear.

My CD player registers this music at an amazing 82 minutes and 57 seconds, a number I’ve never seen any single disc register. Everything is here – Animation represents tracks 1 through 8 and Soundscapes represents tracks 9 through 14 - sounding pristine and especially well-preserved.

It's essential listening for anyone interested in high-quality fusion of the 70s and, of course, anyone interested in the fantastic musical universe of one of jazz’s very best composers and certainly among the idiom’s finest pianists.