Would anyone care to recommend favorite solo piano recordings of "Great American Songbook" classics? Porter, Carmichael, Arlen, Gershwin, Berlin, Rodgers, Kern, etc.

I own Kevin Cole's Gershwin CD and have seen him live a couple of times -- highly recommended:

http://www.amazon.com/Cole-Plays-Gershwi...ords=kevin+cole

These are all separate albums:

Oscar Peterson Plays the Best of the Great American Songbook

Oscar Peterson Plays Broadway

Oscar Peterson Plays Richard Rodgers

Oscar Peterson Plays Gershwin (1 & 2)

Oscar Peterson Plays Cole Porter

Oscar Peterson Plays Jerome Kern

Oscar Peterson Plays Irving Berlin

Oscar Peterson Plays Harold Arlan

Oscar Peterson Plays Duke Ellington

ETC.

Yes to all these!

You could also check out the Maybeck Recital Hall Series. Tons of great jazz pianists playing songs from the Great American Songbook.

Check teh maybeck series. In particular, dave mckenna, gene harris, kenny barron. But they are all good.

Also tons of great stuff for free, mariannmcpartland with npr jazz. Bill evans, chick, oscar, you name it.

Oh, and anything art tatum ever recorded. Advanced, but pure genius.

By the way, if any of you are interested in the Maybeck Recital Hall, it is for sale now. Asking $1,850,000.

What's happening to this beautiful hall ?

Verve issued a ton of great "American Songbook" collections, from Ella Fitzgerald, to Sarah Vaughn, to Oscar, and so on. For the recordings with vocalists, many of these include incredible piano accompanists, and usually top arrangements. Of course, there are many newer offerings, but I love these 1950s-1960's issues.

The Maybeck recital hall is a room in a private residence in Berkeley, which is for sale now. It was originally built for musicians. Back when Dick Whittington owned it, public concerts were offered there and the recordings were made. That was quite a while ago.

I was talking to someone who worked on those recordings. He was amused at reviews that extolled the marvelous acoustics of the hall. He said that there was all sorts of post-production processing done on the recordings to get that sound.