Erroll Garner
Campus Concert

Liner Notes

As any student of physics knows, when two giant forces meet, a massive interaction takes place. When Erroll Garner, a titan of the piano keyboard, jazz improvisation and the concert stage, meets another giant of our time, the college audience, a special excitement occurs.

This exciting decade might almost be called the Student Sixties. The national press has been taking repeated long looks at this dynamic new American entity—The Student Class. The world of show business, too, has become increasingly attracted to the college audience as a major showcase for new and established talent. By 1966 the campus has become one of the most coveted sites for performers to appear.

The American college community numbers some five million students. With population growth and broadening educational facilities, the student population is expected to reach seven million by the end of the decade. The college audience has truly become a giant, possessed of a new interest in all the arts and a new power to make or break stars.

To this audience, Erroll Garner has been speaking knowledgeably as few performers can. On "Campus Concert” is recorded the special brand of rapport between stage and spectator that Garner brings to all his performances. There were 6,000 students packed into the Purdue University Music Hall auditorium (in spring of 1964) for this session. But the concert might be considered typical of any of the scores of campus programs Garner has given since the early 1950's.

Why does Erroll Garner fit in so companionably with the new student mentality? Clearly, he has a certain youthfulness and vitality that they identify with. There is his sense of evergreen style, his daring improvisations and rhythms, timeless freedom and irreverent humor that make the student feel as much at ease with him as with each other. But it is a two-way love affair, for Garner has a special affection for the campus concert in return. He has played to standing ovations at dozens of schools, and invariably is asked to return. If the pianist is asked how old he is, he will jest: “About 27." Perhaps it is no jest, for that is about how old he feels, even though he has been performing since his boyhood in the 1930's.

Whenever Garner has a campus date, he likes, if possible, to show up a day early. Nothing gives him a greater sense of ease than to roam the secluded greens and stately buildings that form the campus. Nothing gives him greater impetus than to talk with students. Thus, he has become a familiar figure at the Big 10 and "the little 20," having played at Yale and Chapel Hill, in Ann Arbor and at Ohio State, Loyola University and Podunk College. Even when appearing at such off-campus halls as Orchestra Hall in Chicago, the audience make-up will reflect a heavy turnout of collegians.

On a purely objective level, Erroll Garner's music can be considered as healthy an expression as any the students might be exposed to. In a period when some jazz and some rock 'n' roll have maneuvered themselves into corners of passionless esoterica, blind-alley alienation and just sound-for-sound's sake, Garnerism points another direction.

Garnerism, students, might be defined, as a type of joy, an affirmation of the non-neurotic view of the world, a romanticism and a theatricality that says its prophet is still youthfully, idealistically in love with the beautiful sounds and the beautiful ideas in this world. This music seems to have no beginning or ending dates, and the students just dig it for its intrinsic joyfulness.

Garner is still concerned with communication in an age of self-avowed alienation. A commentator on Garnerism puts this involvement this way: "To Garner, his audience is the fourth member of his trio, its response and receptiveness triggering his program and his entire performance.” (An apt occasion to identify his other supporters—Kelly Martin on drums and Eddie Calhoun on bass.)

This album places no great need for interpretation of what Garner does. The signature of the master is there and the tell-tale stylistic imprints are all over the place: the playful little noodlings while Garner is "getting on the runway" for a high-flying excursion into improvisation. The straight-off-the-ground helicopter take-offs. The tags which help him get off the stage from a still-demanding audience.

The program runs through some very un-standard performances of standards like Indiana and My Funny Valentine to a not so widely known show tune, Lulu's Back in Town, which dates back to “Broadway Gondolier" of 1935. Mambo Erroll is a Garner original, a reminder that the pianist, with more than 200 com positions to his credit, including the world-renowned Misty, should be properly described as a composer and pianist.

The familiarity of this tune or the novelty of that one, all quickly become suffused into an over-all amalgam we have been calling Garnerism. Each element of the whole is stamped with the fine hand of one of the great individualists in American music. Each element is emblazoned with the uncopyable copyright of an interpreter winning over a new generation with an eminently durable approach.

Garner's collegiate audience is by no means just an All-American team, for he is equally popular with students throughout the world. Long before the entertainment world was formally geared toward the campus audience, Erroll Garner was playing for students. With the truly great masters, of which he is one, there are always students ready to listen, to learn and to wonder at a master's art.

As any student of physics knows, when two giant forces meet, a massive interaction takes place. When Erroll Garner, a titan of the piano keyboard, jazz improvisation and the concert stage, meets another giant of our time, the college audience, a special excitement occurs.

This exciting decade might almost be called the Student Sixties. The national press has been taking repeated long looks at this dynamic new American entity—The Student Class. The world of show business, too, has become increasingly attracted to the college audience as a major showcase for new and established talent. By 1966 the campus has become one of the most coveted sites for performers to appear.

The American college community numbers some five million students. With population growth and broadening educational facilities, the student population is expected to reach seven million by the end of the decade. The college audience has truly become a giant, possessed of a new interest in all the arts and a new power to make or break stars.

To this audience, Erroll Garner has been speaking knowledgeably as few performers can. On "Campus Concert” is recorded the special brand of rapport between stage and spectator that Garner brings to all his performances. There were 6,000 students packed into the Purdue University Music Hall auditorium (in spring of 1964) for this session. But the concert might be considered typical of any of the scores of campus programs Garner has given since the early 1950's.

Why does Erroll Garner fit in so companionably with the new student mentality? Clearly, he has a certain youthfulness and vitality that they identify with. There is his sense of evergreen style, his daring improvisations and rhythms, timeless freedom and irreverent humor that make the student feel as much at ease with him as with each other. But it is a two-way love affair, for Garner has a special affection for the campus concert in return. He has played to standing ovations at dozens of schools, and invariably is asked to return. If the pianist is asked how old he is, he will jest: “About 27." Perhaps it is no jest, for that is about how old he feels, even though he has been performing since his boyhood in the 1930's.

Whenever Garner has a campus date, he likes, if possible, to show up a day early. Nothing gives him a greater sense of ease than to roam the secluded greens and stately buildings that form the campus. Nothing gives him greater impetus than to talk with students. Thus, he has become a familiar figure at the Big 10 and "the little 20," having played at Yale and Chapel Hill, in Ann Arbor and at Ohio State, Loyola University and Podunk College. Even when appearing at such off-campus halls as Orchestra Hall in Chicago, the audience make-up will reflect a heavy turnout of collegians.

On a purely objective level, Erroll Garner's music can be considered as healthy an expression as any the students might be exposed to. In a period when some jazz and some rock 'n' roll have maneuvered themselves into corners of passionless esoterica, blind-alley alienation and just sound-for-sound's sake, Garnerism points another direction.

Garnerism, students, might be defined, as a type of joy, an affirmation of the non-neurotic view of the world, a romanticism and a theatricality that says its prophet is still youthfully, idealistically in love with the beautiful sounds and the beautiful ideas in this world. This music seems to have no beginning or ending dates, and the students just dig it for its intrinsic joyfulness.

Garner is still concerned with communication in an age of self-avowed alienation. A commentator on Garnerism puts this involvement this way: "To Garner, his audience is the fourth member of his trio, its response and receptiveness triggering his program and his entire performance.” (An apt occasion to identify his other supporters—Kelly Martin on drums and Eddie Calhoun on bass.)

This album places no great need for interpretation of what Garner does. The signature of the master is there and the tell-tale stylistic imprints are all over the place: the playful little noodlings while Garner is "getting on the runway" for a high-flying excursion into improvisation. The straight-off-the-ground helicopter take-offs. The tags which help him get off the stage from a still-demanding audience.

The program runs through some very un-standard performances of standards like Indiana and My Funny Valentine to a not so widely known show tune, Lulu's Back in Town, which dates back to “Broadway Gondolier" of 1935. Mambo Erroll is a Garner original, a reminder that the pianist, with more than 200 com positions to his credit, including the world-renowned Misty, should be properly described as a composer and pianist.

The familiarity of this tune or the novelty of that one, all quickly become suffused into an over-all amalgam we have been calling Garnerism. Each element of the whole is stamped with the fine hand of one of the great individualists in American music. Each element is emblazoned with the uncopyable copyright of an interpreter winning over a new generation with an eminently durable approach.

Garner's collegiate audience is by no means just an All-American team, for he is equally popular with students throughout the world. Long before the entertainment world was formally geared toward the campus audience, Erroll Garner was playing for students. With the truly great masters, of which he is one, there are always students ready to listen, to learn and to wonder at a master's art.