Back in 1959, a young New York pianist raised a petition to have composer George Russell's seminal Jazz Workshop album re-released.
The signatures Ran Blake (for twas he) gathered, reproduced in the Ghost Tones booklet, are a who’s who of jazz, among them Thelonious Monk, Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus and Gil Evans.
Blake's signal act of devotion (which didn't bear fruit until 1987 when Jazz Workshop was finally released on CD) anticipated the regard Russell continues to enjoy amongst jazz musicians today, and this touchingly elegiac homage – in solo, duo and ensemble performances – authoritatively traces the life of the great composer in his own tunes, as well as a few Blake originals and two standards, Manhattan and Autumn in New York.
