An impeccable pianist and equally accomplished composer and arranger, Cedar Anthony Walton Jr., born in 1934, was known as a “musicians’ mu- sician,” which is a backhanded way of saying that he was well-respected by his peers yet little known outside jazz circles. This, despite the fact that he made fifty albums under his own name and appeared as a sideman on countless other recordings, including those led by some of the greatest saxophonists in jazz history: to name just a dozen, John Coltrane, Jimmy Heath, Wayne Shorter, Benny Golson, Sonny Stitt, Lucky Thompson, Joe Henderson, Gene Ammons, Junior Cook, Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, and George Coleman. At the tender age of 25, Cedar played on the first recording of Coltrane’s “Giant Steps,” but he was so intimidated by Trane’s musicality that he declined to take a solo, which he later came to regret.