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Ben Ratliff / New York Times / Arts & Leisure / Sunday, Feb 15th

FRANK HEWITT Speaking of dying unrecognized: there is a romantic conception
that this happens to great jazz musicians. If that were the case, it would
mean that greatness is common in jazz, which isn't particularly true, or
that lots of great musicians don't seek recognition, which is even less
true. But the pianist Frank Hewitt played frequently at the West Village
basement club Smalls until his death at 66 in 2002, and he was the
exception: a genuinely high-level, genuinely unrecognized jazz pianist.
(Incidentally, he was never reviewed in The New York Times.) Hewitt was a
bebopper and a ballad player who was exceptionally talented, if lacking
sufficient originality to make people forget the competition. The evidence
is on "We Loved You," a posthumous recording on the newly formed Smalls
Record label and - hard to believe- his first record. He chose lovely,
relaxed tempos and improvised flowingly and casually; when he plays
standards, they come with curiously dramatic solo introductions, improvised
verses and a young rhythm section that knows his moves.