Friday, January 6, 2012

Kris Davis, "Aeriol Piano," Decidedly Different Solo Work


Kris Davis comes out of avant improv/ jazz, or at least that is where the cognitive playing space I know of hers takes place. On her solo disk Aeriol Piano (Clean Feed 233) she incorporates sensibilities from jazz (an abstracted version of "All the Things You Are") new music-classical ("Saturn Return," which uses a partially prepared piano and reflects a free rumination on the Cagean pianistic aura), free-balladic/new music confrontations ("A Different Kind of Sleep") Post-Cecilian agitation ("Good Citizen"), whirling osinato post-minimalism ("Stone"), and on from there.

This is a solo album that doesn't play itself in the background. YOU are needed as an active listener for it to work. It is music-as-adventure, something we may have seen too little of in the insular worlds of various genres in recent times. With Aeriol Piano anything goes, or may go. And it goes well wherever it goes. That's healthy. That's creative. Let's see where she goes next!!

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