Tuesday, February 14, 2012

David Arner, Solo Piano, Spontaneous Compositions, 1997-2001


David Arner is a special sort of new jazz, avant pianist, in that he has absorbed the jazz piano tradition and the innovators in that idiom over the years, has internalized the essence of that music, and emerged with a multi-dimensional take on the possibilities of going forward with the right sort of baggage in hand.

A good place to hear the multiple stylistic personalities of Maestro Arner is on the Dogstar CD release Solo Piano (Dogstar 0209), a seven-segment set composed of various live and studio performances dating from 1997 through 2001. There's post-Taylorian turbulence, inside-the-piano cosmicality and abstract angularity, delicate expressivity with child-like immediacy, bluesy testifying, and somber grandeur. It's a musically rich testimonial on David Arner the wide ranging pianist and fertile inventive musical thinker, Arner the structured improviser, the thoughtfully expressive spontaneous composer.

Excellent solo piano fare.

No comments:

Post a Comment