Solo (ABC) You sense a depth here from the opening notes. Paul Grabowsky has never recorded a solo piano album before and you hear the resolve to make the opportunity count. His harmonic extrapolations on the delicate Angel are so rich and surprising it is like turning the pages of…
Category: Album Reviews
Made in Chicago (ECM) When jazz migrated north from New Orleans in the 1920s it slept on Chicago’s sofa before lobbing in New York, and the Windy City has remained a major jazz centre ever since. The 1960s were especially fertile: pianist Muhal Richard Abrahams’ ground-breaking Experimental Band led to…
Violinair (Violipiano) I like the way Luca Ciarla’s mind works. Music, the Italian seems to suggest, is a game in which one toys with idiom and mood, while appropriating whatever makes it more fun, whether that’s his own superlative facility on the violin, electronic gadgetry, compositional diversity or improvised interaction.…