11 posts tagged “piano”
Grace
2006 Chesky Records
I have really liked Rachel Z since first hearing her on the High Life album by Wayne Shorter. All of her early solo albums are some of the best post-bop piano albums of the 1990s, and her contributions to the fusion supergroup Vertu (with Return To Forever beatsection Stanley Clarke and Lenny White) were superb. Even the less muscular work she did with Steps Ahead was pretty good stuff. And yes, she is the keyboardist for the Peter Gabriel Growing Up tours, as seen in one of the 309978972938 DVDs of the tour that Pete put out.
Where she has tended to falter is when she delves closer to the pop/vocal recordings. Her Love Is The Power album was smooth-jazz married to light electronica and the results were without any real character. And while her voice was not distracting, it wasn't engaging either. This album is bipolar; he vocal tracks are just too not-good to ignore to get at the great trio interplay below. Her voice here is too intrusive, but doesn't compel one to do anything except hit the fast forward button to get to the rich and fulfilling instrumental cuts.
But if you find this on sale or in a cut-out bin (as I did) then this might be worth picking up. Her rendition of U2's One is far superior to the original, and is stretched quite a bit. The same could be said for her reworking of Come as You Are by Nirvana and especially Joga by Bjork, although there is a better take done by Greg Osby floating around. In all of those cases, there are no vocals to be found, and you can really get at the strengths of the trio format she prefers to helm.
Here are some of her must get works:
I did. Well, I listened to Galamb Borong? with is an album of pianist Jans Michels playing some works of Gyorgy Ligeti, alternating with the Gamelan Orchestra of Gong Kebyar.
Right. It didn't make sense to me on first notice either.
And it doesn't really fully work as a complete collection, but if you made two EPs from this (or maybe present the album as two seperate programs instead of the interspersed set here), it might make more sense. Even though there is some sonic consonance between the two sides -namely the use of dense clusters of notes and cyclical motifs- that is about where the connection terminates.
The music itself in both the Gamelan ensemble and in the solo piano is quite good, track sequence notwithstanding.
I have recently watched a bunch of live Keith Jarrett, both in solo and trio format. What I have come to learn (or confirm what I knew already):
- Jarrett is one of the greatest piano players in any genre
- Jarrett is the first person to remind you of this, and is one of the most self-absorbed people in any place on Earth.
- Jarrett is hard to watch sometimes, as his weird gyrations, and pained facial expressions make it appear he is playing while having an orgasm, a high colonic and a wild chincilla stuck down his shirt.
- His vocalization are still annoying.
- The trio dates with Jack DeJohnette and Gary Peacock are really exceptional
Steve Kuhn
Ecstacy
1974 ECM
Oh what a break. Record stores rarely carry as much ECM label releases as I would like, but Streetlight usually does above par. I had read that Steve Kuhn was an early unrecorded member of Coltrane's quartet prior to McCoy Tyner's arrival, and had heard a taste of his playing on a Kenny Dorham release, but this mid 70s solo piano outing was a welcome surprise.
It is a solo piano album that does not get dull, which I have mentioned before is something I find rare. It is not as sprawling as say, Jason Moran's Modernistic, as lush as Herbie Hancock's The Piano or as definitive as either of them, but Ecstacy has some fine compositions (all Kuhn originals) and his third stream approach bridges Keith Jarrett to Bill Evans quite cleanly. Never getting quite fully into the avant-garde nature of the former, and never fully absorbing the lyricism of the latter, it is nonetheless a notable release.
Which may explain why I am in fact, noting it.
Jaki Byard
Blues For Smoke
1960 Candid (1989)
I had heard Jaki Byard's name for some time before I began to investigate him in more depth. Only at closer scrutiny after hearing of his untimely demise in 1999 did I realize he played on numerous Mingus outings I owned, and kept getting name checked by one of my favorite players Jason Moran did I really start to take interest. When I crossed paths with his debut as a leader (in this case as a solo performer) Blues For Smoke, I was deeply impressed.
Byard is woefully underappreciated. One fierce player, and by all accounts one of the few that can shift styles wholesale at a whim, playing all with equal conviction and poise. The dude is seriously adroit, so why this album took almost three decades to hit the cd racks (and even then only briefly as it appears to be out of print again) is beyond the pale. Byard worked with not just Mingus, but with Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and like them shares a penchant for ambitious compositions and broad faculty. Even when crossing styles, they all have that ability to remain themselves and not just be faceless imitators or functionaries of technical performance.
There are nine originals here, with a little bit of something for everyone; hardbop, blues, stride, third stream, avant-garde, et al. All of it is very listenable, something I find rare in solo piano albums. Often the player cannot sustain a completely self-contained space to keep my interest going, and I eventually start wanting for the rest of a rhythm section or contra soloist to appear. This, along with various outings by Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock and Moran remain on the shortlist of truly great solo piano albums (see below).
Across time and timeless.
Keith Jarrett w/ Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette
Changes
1984 ECM
This is just one of many good to great trio albums helmed by Jarrett using Peacock and DeJohnette.
Peacock plays wonderfully elastic and plucky bass and DeJohnette is one of the most singularly brilliant drummers who really knows how to accompany piano players (something I attribute to his own prowess on the ivories). Keith Jarrett deserves to be known as one of the greatest piano players ever...in any genre.
That being said,someone needs to go through his catalog and digitally enhance Jarretts tendency to engage in vocalization during his playing (read: edit that junk out, as it is "hella bugged out" and at times sounds like a mosquito on mescaline with a little insect megaphone is buzzin around the piano board in front of the mic).
Of note, I was really struck by DeJohnettes brushwork on this one.
The performance footage alone is worth it, with a chance to see the inherent physicality he exhibited and a conceptual sense that is still essentially ahead of the curve. It is also intriguing to finally see a little bit into the possible manias that Monk had. No one has ever openly discussed what ailments Monk may or may not have suffered and to what extent, although everything from bipolar disorder to Aspergers has been thrown around. The film makes no attempts to sensationalize, but instead simply offers a hint that whatever Monk may have suffered from, Nellie was his pillar and music was his expressive vehicle through it.
Some of the interview footage was interesting, including his former manager, his sideman Charlie Rouse, and his patroness (with which he and his wife lived for several years), the Baroness Pannonica "Nica" de Koenigswarter (a member of the Rothchild family).
His work cut across genres, appeared fully formed and highly evolved at the onset, is peerless, and utterly timeless. A high priest of bop mechanics, but completely removed from any constraints the genre held.
Thirsty Ear 2003
What can I say, this is sometimes brilliant, sometimes colossally pretentious (and still pretty sharp). Off kilter rap, with really off kilter piano by Shipp. There is some sharp work here, in a collaboration that could have easily been a triumphant mess of avant-rap and freebop.
Instead we have an engaging collection of actually pretty accessible grooves, punctuated with sharp turns and sharper rhymes courtesy of APC (whose three MCs offer a full palette of vernacular acrobatics).
1. Wakeman still has a mind-numbing amount of chops at his disposal.
2. He can still be very tastful in his musical arrangements.
3. Can be hilarious in terms of banter.
However:
1. Wakeman can also engage in a marathon of mind-numbing solo runs with dated sound patches and cheesetastic arrangements.
2. His affection for hideous outfits and a mullet do that even someone from Deliverance would find unappealling. In this video it is even hairsprayed asymmetrically.
3. The banter was still great.
Esbjorn Svensson Trio
Strange Place For Snow
2002 Gul/Sony
I "discovered" EST via a place I regularly discover things...the bargain bin. It was their debut album, and while it did not bowl me over, it was sufficiently promising that when their sophomore major label release Strange Place for Snow came out, I picked it up (it was not in the bargain bin, but I did find one copy a few months after release in the standard used section for six dollars). It is a marked step up, and I dare say this group should be getting the attention as the "new" piano trio to watch for instead of The Bad Plus. Don't get me wrong, TBP is a decent outfit, but I feel they get a lot of press just because they act ironic-hipster with their choices in cover tunes and hints at being "edgy/free" (there are a lot of quote marks in this post, damn).
EST has a style that is both fluid and challenging but very lyrical and easy to follow. They are at root an acoustic trio with strong improvisational skill, but good at working with cycling motifs and rhythmically grooving along with an ear towards the occasional curveball, including the buried deep but discernable use on a few spots of electronics; not in the current trend of adding electronica elements to something for its own sake, but because it works in context. Their use of things like prepared piano, bowed instead of plucked bass, and percussion sounds that veer away from standard trap kit all hint at purely sonic rather than PR reasoning, and it works really bloody well. A cut like Spunky Sprawl sounds like its title, with a briskness and bounce. Opener The Message is a theme song for a morning walk in front of winter lawns after the first snow. The album title is appropro in that regard,as the whole thing evokes a sense of winter (assuming you can have an album tied to a season).
The title track is as close to standard post-bop/straightahead in the US vein as they get. Punchy and clear, it swings well enough. Behind the Yashmak is not too far away from that same style, but at over 10 minutes, it dawdles a bit in spots. The trio shines on ballads and more eclectic fare; Bound for the Beauty of the South and Serenade for the Renegade have crytalline solo figures and hypnotic vamps, and some of the better use of brushwork by a drummer I have heard in sometime (Mr. Magnus Ostrom, kudos to you).
When God Created the Coffeebreak is a weird, compelling kind of composition that is the jagged European classicism sometimes evident in work by Keith Jarrett (even the Message features the , but honed to linear clarity with an almost early Chick Corea assertiveness. Which brings me to the fact that these guys exude a certain character that I always seem to want to stamp as "European" (geez, more quote marks). It's a subdued character, partially melancholic, partially invoking a sense of composure and cerebral quality that always reminds me players like Bill Evans (who while an American, evoked that studied tendency and epitomizing self-effacement). In many ways EST carries a goodly portion of that Bill Evans vibe without being anything but themselves; they are a piano trio, but all three get to shine distinctly, much as players like LeFaro, Israels, Gomez, Johnson and Motian did with Bill's various trio lineups. Svensson himself has an arresting amount of technique, but a varied touch on the piano that lets him be as forceful or delicate as the music nexessitates. With Ostrom and Dan Berglund providing equal partnerships in fleshing out the landscape, satisfaction results quickly.
This is really good stuff, likely ignored here because too many people are stuck in Wynton and Stanley's land of studied boredom.
