Fred Hersch - Silent, Listening

April 16, 2024

Label: ECM Records, 2024

Personnel - Fred Hersch: piano.

Pianist and composer Fred Hersch, a 17-time Grammy nominee with collaborations alongside jazz legends like Art Framer and Gary Burton, possesses a unique ability to emphasize beautiful melodies within sophisticated harmonizations as well as explore uncharted territory in the moment. These qualities are on full display in Silent, Listening, an introspective solo album that reasserts his stature as a prime pianist with a broad artistic vision.

Presenting brilliantly crafted nocturnals, the set begins with Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn’s “Star-Crossed Lovers”, whose narrative process involves poignancy, reflection, and exquisite beauty. Hersch’s original compositions, like “Night Delight” and “Akrasia”, are equally captivating, where something is always transpiring, even in the quietest of the moments. The former, hazy and secretive, immerses us in a baffling, inconclusive dream, while the latter dreams up mysterious shadows, with Hersh anchoring austere pulsations on the lower register while coloring bucolic impressionistic landscapes several steps higher in pitch.

Breaking away from convention, the pianist explores new realms and finds new spaces on openly improvised numbers like “Aeon”, where he traverses the keyboard to express intriguing findings, and “Volon”, whose prevailing stillness is interrupted by sudden bursts of movement. On the other hand, “Little Song”, originally written for his duo collaboration with Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava, introduces a palpable rhythm and harmony into a streamlined musical form.

The music continues to soar with inspired renditions of Sigmund Romberg’s “Softly As In a Morning Sunrise”, which Hersch immediately associates with saxophonist Sonny Rollins, and Alec Wilder’s haunting ballad “Winter of My Discontent”. This is where the most straightforward lyricism touches the soul.

Hersch always evokes sincerity and emotion with his piano playing, and Silent, Listening is one of his most worthy solo albums in recent years.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Star-Crossed Lovers ► 03 - Akrasia ► 11 - Winter of My Discontent

Dahveed Behroozi - Standard Fare

August 2, 2023

Label: Sunnyside Records, 2023

Personnel - David Behroozi: piano.

Following a well-received trio album of originals entitled Echos, American pianist Dahveed Behroozi releases Standard Fare, an intimate set of unaccompanied jazz standards that reflects his hybrid, non-traditional approach to music.

“All the Things You Are” draws the listener into his sound world with introspective temperament and poignancy in the chordal movements. This dreamlike ambience is suddenly interrupted by a swift keyboard flow infused with typically classical melodies. Once in a while, one can spot fragments of the main melody that, in a jiffy, dissolve into fluid jazz idioms. The aforementioned opener and the last track, Monk’s provocative “Trinkle Tinkle”, are the strongest of an album where spontaneous unfolding of phrases toggles between oblique and straightly leveled.

Another famous Monk tune brought to the set is “Round Midnight”, which goes from rubato to a sequence of unexpected phrasings delivered with variable pacing and bright harmonic color. Tempo is never a concern here, though. “I Love Paris” is tenderly expressed like a lullaby, carrying some wistfulness and melancholy that digs deep in emotion, whereas “East of the Sun” is treated like a pared-down nocturnal. Faithful to his crossbred variety of classical, jazz and new music elements, Behroozi shapes Rodgers and Hart’s popular tune “With a Song in My Heart” as a rhapsodic recital that still retains some of its innate original reflexes. Conversely, “Just One of Those Things” appears here with propulsive bass notes occasionally emphasized and altered melody.

Behroozi has crafted an accessible and listenable album of standards that, not matching his previous work, finds its own moods and sonic pathways.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - All the Things You Are ► 02 - I Love Paris ► 09 - Trinkle Tinkle

Brad Mehldau - Your Mother Should Know: Brad Mehldau Plays the Beatles

March 8, 2023

Label: Nonesuch Records, 2023

Personnel - Brad Mehldau: piano.

The virtuosic American pianist Brad Mehldau dives into the sophisticated pop/rock universe of The Beatles in his new outing, Your Mother Should Know: Brad Mehldau Plays the Beatles. The results are not as bold and imaginative as in Mehldau’s last effort Jacob’s Ladder, where, accompanied by great guest musicians, he delivered Scripture-inspired originals and excellent renditions of prog rock songs.

Here, playing solo, he puts a nice expression in the melody of the opening track, “I Am the Walrus”, adding colorful harmonic filling to generate an elegant dancing quality that the 1967 original (from the album Magical Mystery Tour) didn’t have. Other two great interpretations are “For No One”, whose in-and-out dexterity conduce to bluesy and psychedelic innuendos, and “Golden Slumbers”, whose gospelized sequences immerses us in a lyrical grace.

The remaining eight pieces are not particularly exciting. “Your Mother Should Know” adopts a foot-tapping swinginess in its stride maneuvers; “I Saw Her Standing There” triggers some bass fortitude appertaining to the pianist’s left hand; and “She Said She Said” offers rubato portions in its balladic dormancy. The pianist finishes off with a dramatic if unimpressive reading of David Bowie’s “Life on Mars?”.

Mehldau is an inspiring, out-of-the-box musician, but this particular album is a minor entry in his discography.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - I Am the Walrus ► 04 - For No One ► 10 - Golden Slumbers

David Virelles - Nuna

May 23, 2022

Label: Pi Recordings, 2022

Personnel - David Virelles: piano, marimbula; Julio Barreto: percussion (#3,9,14)

Revealing a delightful intimacy, pianist/composer David Virelles is at his best on his first solo album, Nuna, where he weighs in on many of his influences - from classical music (Chopin, Scriabin) to Cuban rhythms (changuí) to African folklore (Skandrani, Guèbrou) - with unparalleled expression. From the 20 pieces that resulted from the solitude of the pandemic, only two go beyond the six minute mark in length.

Virelles opens the album by playing marímbula (the ‘bass’ used in changuí music) on “Spacetime”, a piece that, like many others, evokes its Cuban roots. This is followed by the solo piano narrative of “Ocho”, which borders on the surreal with a fusion of bountiful rhythmic fluxes and serene reflections. Other solo piano pieces that immediately call our attention are loaded with folk elements, such as “Al Compás de mi Viejo Tres”, whose passionate two-handed flow culminates spectacularly, “Mambo Escalonado”, and Mariano Mercerón’s “Cuando Canta el Cornetín”. These two last pieces are melodically clearer and more rhythmically familiar in their sonic delineation, but even when that’s not the case, like in the avant-garde “Simple Answer”, Virelles always finds fertile ground between straightforwardness and abstraction.

Cuban percussionist Julio Barreto, known for his work with Grammy-awarded pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba in the ‘90s, guests on three pieces, namely “Ghost Town”, in which he reinforces the propelling energy that stems from the piano with a gorgeous Afro-Cuban pulsation; “Ignacio Villa”, whose irresistible rhythmic drive and well-shaped theme statement make it memorable; and “Portico”.

Whereas “Tessellations” and “Camino Del Escultor” are energized by rhythmic figures and entrancing undulations, “Nacen” is simultaneously reflective and tense, with some dark clouds hovering above. In turn, hypnotic cluster chords support the haunting melody of “Danza de Rosario”.

Virelles handles these chanting lines as deftly as he weaves Afro-Cuban grooves, showing he’s an exceedingly well-versed musician. He shines throughout with boldness and authenticity.

Favorite Tracks:
09 - Ignacio Villa ► 11- Mambo Escalonado ► 13 - Cuando Canta el Cornetín

Craig Taborn - Shadow Plays

October 21, 2021

Label: ECM Records, 2021

Personnel - Craig Taborn: piano.

Extremely skilled in the way he explores his instrument, the modern creative pianist Craig Taborn involves us in a drape of sounds and textures that range from literate to empowering and from rigorous to freewheeling.

Fully improvised and recorded live, his second ECM solo piano effort, Shadow Plays, starts with the 17-minute “Bird Templars”, where an ostinato-driven flux coalesces with deliberate bass notes, implying, by turns, electronic music build-ups, modern classical streams and pop music progressions. Avoiding to clutter the music by carefully weighing every element, Taborn remains wedded to music in all its forms, exploring calm waves and juxtaposed rhythms with the same dedicated passion.

“Conspiracy of Things” evolves expeditiously, presenting a different kind of swing that only visionary pianists can achieve. In “A Code With Spells”, he lets the power of the harmony shine through, exploring several patterns with odd meter, while on “Shadow Play”, the epic tones at the very beginning twist into heavy, maniac dollops of fierce energy before forming an amazing map of sounds that engulf dancing folk lines, asymmetric groove and repetition of ideas.

If the sonic games of “Discordia Concors” and “Concordia Discors” can be tricky to follow in their expansions, contractions, convergences and divergences, then the concluding “Now in Hope” wraps up every tension, whether by waltzing with a delicate melody or flowing rubato with amiable temper. It sounds very jazzy in both cases.

This recording illustrates what Taborn is capable of when his extravagant imagination comes alive. The more you revisit it, the more you take pleasure from what’s being offered.

Favorite Tracks:
03 - Conspiracy of Things ► 06 - Shadow Play ► 07 - Now in Hope

Kirk Lightsey - I Will Never Stop Loving You

September 8, 2021

Label: Jojo Records, 2021

Personnel - Kirk Lightsey: piano.

The veteran Detroit-born pianist Kirk Lightsey who played with the legendary trumpeter Chet Baker and saxophonist Dexter Gordon, among many others, returns to the solo format with greater adherence to affection. Here, he devours not only post-bop tunes from Wayne Shorter and Tony Williams, but also an iconic hard-bop piece by Coltrane, a ballad penned by Phil Woods and another one he wrote himself and whose name gave this album its title. It’s worth to mention that all seven tunes were previously recorded by the pianist, most of them solo.

His sole composition to appear on this recording, the ballad “I’Will Never Stop Loving You”, can also be found on the 1993 reissue of his Isotope album (Criss Cross Jazz). Here, Lightsey shapes it with profound tenderness while exploring the timbral richness of his instrument.

The passion for the music of Wayne Shorter was evident in the early stages of his career, and he gives new interpretations to “Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum”, tackled with plenty of staccato moves as well as nimble phrasing and bluesy bends, “Infant Eyes”, whose interpretive soulfulness and abandon underscore his affinity for space and presence, and “Wild Flower”, which concludes the album with pulchritude and heart.

Coltrane’s “Giant Step” is not exceptional, and Tony Williams’ “Pee Wee” carries that type of disorienting harmonies that lets us afloat. Yet, “Goodbye Mr. Evans”, written by the versatile altoist Phil Woods in 1981 after the death of pianist Bill Evans, takes us from the haunting bass note that opens the tune to the harmonic webs traced by Lightsey with such a tactful sympathy.

Despite having in mind that every rendition brings something new to the setting, this work gives the impression to be a surplus addition to the reliable pianist’s discography.

Favorite Tracks:
02 - Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum ► 04 - Infant Eyes ► 05 - Goodbye Mr. Evans

Theo Walentiny - Looking Glass

May 12, 2021

Label: Self-released, 2021

Personnel - Theo Walentiny: piano.

Influenced by Keith Jarrett and Paul Bley, the 24-year-old pianist Theo Walentiny puts together a set of seven piano improvisations in his solo debut album, Looking Glass.

The promising musician, who has been based in Brooklyn since 2014 and co-leads the Aurelia Trio with equally up-and-coming associates - the bassist Nick Dunston and the drummer Connor Parks - envisions to reveal his true self through improvisations based on sceneries painted by his imagination. As he puts it, on those occasions, he and the piano become one.

The immersive first track, “Fanfare For Looking Glass” whets our appetite by opposing tension-filled left-hand underpinnings and softer yet deep reflections that take place over the middle and right end of the keyboard. The movements create a sense of awe by themselves, but when combined, they release an impressive torrent of emotions that push the pianist to excavate more textures and melodic lines. It’s a gripping starting point.

However, this bold posture seems to faint on tracks such as “Behind Tall Grass” and “Grey They Billow”, the former being a melancholy meditation that barely includes the element of surprise, and the latter containing minimally narrated parts that weakens the communication by drowning itself in extensive, profound rumination.

“Film II” regains the nerve by grabbing a catchy cadenced flux measured with a steadfast harmonization, pointillistic detail and whimsical smears that intensify the angular perspective of the viewer. It’s not hard to identify contemporary classical and experimental jazz portions over the course of a tensile stretch rich in mood fluctuations.

“The Everlasting Rain Moves” creates an irregular framework over which patterns and cycles mutate with logic, whereas “Of Worlds Other Than” conjures a restless dream with as much inert configurations as whirling spirals.

The now poetic, now rousing ambiguities of the narrative became intermittently interesting. That being said, I’m still curious to see what Walentiny’s next step will be.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Fanfare For Looking Glass ► 02 - The Everlasting Rain Moves ► 05 - Film II

Marc Copland - John

January 28, 2021

Label: Illusions Mirage, 2020

Personnel - Marc Copland: piano.

In addition to an exceptional career as a leader, American jazz pianist Marc Copland has partnered with saxophonist Dave Liebman, bassist Gary Peacock, and guitarist John Abercrombie for many years. His latest solo album, John, is a tribute to the latter musician and friend with whom he worked closely since the 1990’s.

Gathering nine Abercrombie’s early and late compositions, Copland get the session started by burrowing into the deep beauty of “Timeless”. He adds a rich melodic intro before entering that circular, heartfelt progression that keeps us soaring among spacious clouds. It’s an immediate gratification we get on this fantastic piece.

“Isla”, which first appeared on the 1982 duo recording Five Years Later with Ralph Towner, ensures another introspective and haunting experience, creating gentle and tightly focused soundscapes in a slow-burning routine. Embracing a similar mood, we have “Sad Song”, which heightens the melancholy, and “Remember Hymn”, a rubato amazement devised with chordal brilliance and impeccable note choices.

While “Sunday School” oozes nostalgia from all pores with sheer sentiment, the not so known but no less brilliant “Flip Side” brings the post-bop creativity of both composer and interpreter to the fore. Copland’s nimble fingering fuels the subtleness of the song with suspended contrapuntal motion.

Taking into account the color, shade and tone of its narrative, “Vertigo” is perhaps the piece that, waltzing and rambling with effortless abandon, better goes with the formerly described piece.

Copland has the ability of never overstuffing the music too much. He sticks to smooth textures that, never disrupted, lulls the listener with plenty of emotion. This is a great record for listening late at night in a relaxing environment.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Timeless ► 02 - Isla ► 03 - Flip Side

Keith Jarrett - Budapest Concert

December 23, 2020

Label: ECM

Personnel - Keith Jarrett: piano

After the sad news reporting that prolific pianist Keith Jarrett might not ever play again in public after two strokes suffered in 2018, we try to find solace in his discography. The double solo album Budapest Concert, his latest ECM release, was captured live at The Bela Bartok National Concert Hall in Budapest, Hungary, an inspiring country for him for several reasons. First of all, because of his appreciation for Bartok’s impressive music, and second because his maternal grandmother hailed from there. Following up last year’s Munich 2016, this is the second live-recording culled from his memorable 2016 tour.

Over the course of the album’s 14 tracks, we are sucked into his personal musical realm of free improvisation with classical and folk influences. At the end, he even grants us a couple of standards that are usually part of his concert repertoire - a slow-paced rubato interpretation of “It’s a Lonesome Old Town”, which also appeared on the previous recording, and a touching reading of “Answer Me My Love”, an originally German song that was recorded by Nat King Cole, Joni Mitchell and Gene Ammons.

His nimble finger movements whether interlock into pulsating cadences or separate melodic and harmonic threads, making them operate as logic juxtapositions. He does this through intense abstract commotions (Part I, Part IX), comfortable meditations with an occasional dreamy quality (Part II, Part XI), ever-moving routes (Part III), and engrossing rhythms underpinning lush textures (Part IV). “Part X” is a mix of the last two, contrasting with the endearing romantic touch of “Part V”, the unleashing tinge of bop on “Part VI”, the pop/folk coloring of “Part VII” or the inviting blues of “Part XII”.

No one expected this to be at the level of works like The Koln Concert or Solo Concerts: Bremen and Lausanne. And it’s not. Still, it’s Jarrett speaking his sophisticated language, totally immersed in his incontestable style.

Favorite Tracks:
04 - Part IV ► 07 - Part VII ► 10 - Part X

Matthew Shipp - The Piano Equation

July 21, 2020

Label: Tao Forms, 2020

Personnel - Matthew Shipp: piano.

With unmatched style, pianist and improviser Matthew Shipp masterminds another solo offering where his fabulous command of timbre and texture brings creative ideas to fruition. The titles of the 11 pieces that comprise The Piano Equation indicate connections with mathematics and space phenomena, containing words like equation, void, vortex, hyperspace, signal and cosmic.

The title cut opens the record like a lugubrious lullaby distorted by tense bulky sounds and angular movements on the lower register. At some point, it made me think of the standard “Like Someone in Love”, totally warped by the pianist’s expansive vision.

“Swing Note From Deep Space” has multiple and independent movements - an assortment of contrapuntal swing-based motifs, odd intervals and quizzical sequences of notes - forming spontaneous grids. Letting his imagination go beyond what is expected, Shipp creates a polyrhythmic cadence by the end, able to disconcert as much as to enchant.

Dazzlingly amorphous and moodier, “Vortex Factor” emulates particles in perpetual swirling motion. The outcome is knotty and heavy like Cecil Taylor’s music, but undoubtedly organic. The vitality felt here is matched by the short “Clown Pulse”, a much lighter piece where the pianist employs a more archetypal jazz vocabulary.

If “Radio Signals Equation” is made of danceable passages bursting with rhythm, spiraling micro-phrases interlaced with highly-coordinated strokes, and harmonic tartness, then “Land of the Secrets” is its opposite, striking a balance between the contemporary classical and the avant-garde jazz genres. Poised, enigmatic and poetic in its creative spark, this particular number left me with a sense of wonder.

Immersed in blues-bustling abstraction, “Void Equation” is an intoxicating tale that gains further momentum as it advances. Nothing compared to the closer “Cosmic Juice”, though, which is my favorite piece on the album. Initially served with a tangy, concentrated flavor and allowing both bright and dark tonalities to emerge, the tune is reshaped into something more atmospheric as a consequence of the perplexing chordal work exerted by the pianist.

The freedom of playing solo is beautiful, and that can be deeply felt here. By exploring new places within his vast musical cosmos, Shipp takes us into a journey that emboldens the listeners’ imagination.

Favorite Tracks:
05 - Land of the Secrets ► 09 - Radio Signals Equation ► 11 - Cosmic Juice

Lafayette Gilchrist - Dark Matter

September 4, 2019

Label: Lafayette Music, 2019

Personnel - Lafayette Gilchrist: piano.

Baltimore-based pianist Lafayette Gilchrist, a member of David Murray Black Saint Quartet, has not been documented that thoroughly throughout his career. His newest CD, Dark Matter, marks his second solo effort and was inspired by the invisible force that holds the universe together. Played with freedom and recorded live, the 11 original compositions that compose the album come to life as a hub of styles, embracing jazz in a variety of currents - funk, blues, and almost indistinct hints of hip hop.

Regardless the amount of variations and contrasts that his music has to offer, Gilchrist coaxes the blues out of almost every note he plays. The genre irrigates tunes such as the chunky “For The Go Go”, a homage to the Baltimore-Washington D.C. funk subgenre go-go music (a unique regional style with which the pianist is very familiar); “And You Know This”, whose faintly spiritual aura is swallowed by a rock n’ roll-ish cadence that is also vividly felt on “Happy Birthday Sucka”; and “Blues For Our Marches To End”, a strutter written in 2014 as a reaction to the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

The pianist stirs “The Love Bind” with his disciplined stride piano technique, placing the bass notes in constant counterpoint with the ideas and flourishes delivered by an agile right hand. In turn, “Spontaneous Combustion”, whose title may suggest some sort of avant-garde spontaneity, starts with classical-like movements that, little by little, are overcome by a resolutely paced rockish cadenza. However, its flow keeps being interrupted by quieter lyrical segments. This sort of rhythmic variations are also a constant on “Child’s Play”, whose mutable parts beautifully integrate heartfelt melodies, bluesy figures, and soulful chords. There’s some sort of playfulness amidst the predominant affectionate tones.

Gilchrist’s sense of phrasing is fluent yet veers to pondering whenever the narrative demands it. To my ears, the darker and more reflective tunes are by far the most interesting. The haunting title cut, for example, bears this dark-hued, Horace Tapscott-fueled post-bop feel populated by subversive notes that simultaneously shock and astound. While implying a strolling tempo and negotiating lower regions, the pianist brandishes a marvel of a tune.

In the same line of the latter, the poignant “Old Whale Bones”, inspired by archeological digs, drifts with no apparent destination until vehement, boisterous chords finalize its journey, while on “Black Flight”, a melancholic tribute to the African-American WWII fighter pilots Tuskegee Airmen, Gilchrist covers the range of the keyboard in order to fuse dramatic, mournful, and enigmatic sounds with logic and precision.

Balancing elated and ruminative moods and ideas, Dark Matter is a valid, yet unexceptional offering from a mature pianist who doesn't give up searching for exposure.

Favorite Tracks:
02 - Child’s Play ► 03 - Dark Matter ► 08 - Old Whale Bones

Fred Hersch - Open Book

September 14, 2017

Label/Year: Palmetto Records, 2017

Lineup - Fred Hersch: piano.

Open Book is another wonderful opportunity to get in touch with the compelling and always emotional music of Fred Hersch, an established pianist who, playing solo, presents three originals and four selected covers of disparate nature.

The gifted musician confesses in the booklet notes of his 11th solo release that what gives him more pleasure lately is sitting down at the piano and let it flow to see what happens. That’s exactly the sensation we got when this record is spinning. It starts by conveying a delicate intimacy in its opening tune, “The Orb”, an original and very personal composition whose touching lyricism is freed by the magic touch of his fingers as he couples melodic and harmonic richness. Everything is surrounded by a glorious sense of dreaming.

“Plainsong” is another original composition that reflects this state of melancholy, generating an idyllic crossing between jazz and classical genres. Its structure has nothing to do with “Through the Forest”, a ruminative 19-minute free improvisation that explores imaginary paths and trails of a secret forest. There are amazement, abstracted reverie, and dazzle in the depiction, but also mystery and an intermittent tension that is mostly created by the deep-sounding chords unhooked with the left hand.

Jobim’s “Zingaro”, also known as “Portrait in Black and White”, shows up with a heavenly aura, carrying all that crushing sentiment in the beautiful melody and harmonic progression.

Benny Golson’s classic “Whisper Not” is dissected with wisdom and perceptiveness, and then reconstructed with adventurous melodic counterpoint and ruling staccato voicings that, in an early stage, difficult the perception of which tune we are listening to. The main melody only becomes clearly discernible when we reach the final shout chorus.

In turn, Monk’s “Eronel" theme is delivered when most expected. Holding on to its natural bop gaiety, Hersch’s rendition exerts inventive rhythmic variations, stout phrases enriched with exciting passage notes, and attractive motifs. It diverges from Billy Joel’s lyric poem “And So It Goes”, which, interpreted with elegance, closes the album with a romantic touch.

As a curiosity, the previous solo album by Fred Hersch, precisely entitled Solo, also included one Jobim and one Monk song, and closed with a pop/rock piece, in the case, Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides, Now”. Regardless the observation, Open Book is another story and a wonderful one, replete with fantastic moments that should be enough to make you exploring it with no reservations.

Favorite Tracks:
01 – The Orb ► 02 - Whisper Not ► 04 - Through the Forest