The Lineage of Modern Jazz Piano
A view from Richie Beirach taken from conversations with Michael Lake

Jazz is a language and that language has evolved throughout the past 100 years. The piano is the heart of the jazz harmonic language and as such, the grandmaster jazz piano players throughout history have had the greatest influence on the evolution of jazz.In this audiobook, Richie Beirach - himself one of the great jazz stylists - describes in detail the distinguishing characteristics of the 10 most influential jazz pianists of the 20th and 21st centuries. This is not an academic tome on the jazz art form and history. Rather, it is a keen observation through his personal relationships with some of these players and a learned perspective of their influence based on a lifetime of listening, teaching, and loving the great music of these 10 giants.