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Piano in Solitude
By
Solo Piano
Next to Silence
2019

Bill Evans
piano1929 - 1980

Lewis Porter
pianob.1951

Brad Mehldau
pianob.1970
The set is comprised of originals and standards alike, and Porter brings the same bold exploratory sensibility to both. It's not always easy to find a discernible pulse amid the frills, flourishes and staggered rhythmic hops, but the melodic heart of each piece is still lurking in there somewhere. "Ragtime Dream" leans closer to dream (and a weird one) than rag, gently flirting with bi-tonality before going for a full snog. "Body and Soul" and "Central Park West" get prodded into shapes that would have been nigh-unimaginable at their bop-era origins, while he even makes that distinct stamp on the most familiar form of the blues. Porter's whole performance here is like a single extended dream, off-the-wall odd in a strangely inviting way.

Melodic Ornette Coleman: Piano Works XIII
ACT Music
2019
If the title Melodic Ornette Coleman sounds like an oxymoron, you might have simply not heard enough sides of

Ornette Coleman
saxophone, alto1930 - 2015

Joachim Kuhn
pianob.1944
Opening with a brisk yet subdued minor noir motif, the pianist makes the keys roll and sing with the semi-angularity that's kept his and Coleman's listeners challenged for decades. He defies the album's title in spots like "Lost Thoughts" or "Physical Chemistry," bouncing and ricocheting around the scale with brash abandonthough even then, there's a definite structure amid the chaos. The song sketches likewise provide channels to wander without regular beats or rhythms, while Kühn's trustworthy inner map reliably keeps him from getting lost.
It also leads him to a couple oases of beauty for the album's highlights, particularly the simple soul of "Tears That Cry" and the beautifully wistful "Somewhere." Kühn closes things out with his lone self-composed piece of the set, whose crazy twist-and-turn capering arguably channels Coleman's spirit most of all. If that seems a bit odd, no matter: the affair is fundamentally a blending of two incomparable performing voices, and it's a rich treat for open-eared fans of either.

The Space
Pirouet Records
2018
As someone or other once said, any fool can play something difficult. It's another order of skill entirely to find this level of beauty in simplicity, but

Kenny Werner
pianob.1951
The title refers to a state of oneness (a concept similar to the emptiness of nirvana, reductive as that description is), and Werner has just enough thoughtful restraint to take us all there if we're patient. He spends the first couple minutes scattering some stray notes sparsely as stars against blackness. Soon it's scattered with a little gypsy dust before drifting back to the quiet of after-hours (if not middle-of-night) solitude in a dim empty lounge. The title track as a whole is a simply masterful exercise in gorgeous understatement.
If the rest of The Space is more busy, it's every bit as elegant. A classic

Keith Jarrett
pianob.1945
Tracks and Personnel
Solo Piano
Tracks: What Is This Thing Called Love?; Ragtime Dream; I Loves You Porgy; Blues for Sunset; Birthplace; Through the Clouds; Mixolydia; Body and Soul; For Eddie Harris; Central Park West.
Personnel: Lewis Porter: piano.
Melodic Ornette Coleman: Piano Works XIII
Tracks: Lonely Woman; Lost Thoughts; Immeriscible Most Capable of Being; Songworld; Physical Chemistry; Tears That Cry; Aggregate and Bound Together; Hidden Knowledge; Love Is Not Generous, Sex Belongs to Woman; She and He Is Who Fenn Love; Somewhere; Food Stamps on the Moon; Lonely Woman; The End of the World. Personnel
Personnel: Joachim Kühn: piano.
The Space
Tracks: The Space; Encore from Tokyo; Fifth Movement; You Must Believe in Spring; Taro; Kiyoko; If I Should Lose You; Fall from Grace.
Personnel: Kenny Werner: piano.
Tags
Multiple Reviews
Kenny Werner
Geno Thackara
Next To Silence Records
Bill Evans
Lewis Porter
brad mehldau
ACT Music
Ornette Coleman
Joachim Kühn
Pirouet Records
Keith Jarrett
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