Artist: John Law

Date of Release:

Catalogue no: 1493

Label: 33 Jazz

Price: £13

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Track Listing

John Law solo piano

Recorded at the wonderful Italian studio Artesuono, this CD, along with The Ghost in the Oak, continues the Art of Sound series started with the universally acclaimed first trio volume.

With a crystal clear, spacious sound, recorded on a fabulous Fazioli grand piano, the two CDs represent the outcome of two years of writing and studying for John Law. The music covers the whole spectrum from beautiful ballads through swing and groove music to dynamic abstract music.

Reviews

26/09/2008 John Fordham

**** FOUR STARS!

This British piano virtuoso runs a sublime, somewhat Brad Mehldau-inspired trio - but he is a fearsome unaccompanied player, too. These two albums of contrapuntal improvisations may bring Keith Jarrett's Köln Concert to mind. However, devotees of classical piano may be drawn by Law's elegiac and flawlessly stroked slow explorations of chord voicings. He doesn't hide the years of detailed preparation that have gone into his music, so you don't get Mehldau's deceptively lazy, slow-burn restraint, or a loose deployment of the left-hand ostinatos that Law tends to keep remorselessly tight. But the Englishman can still be light and playful - as on the rocking Zero-G, which suggests early, hard-swinging Abdullah Ibrahim. The Last Dance gently explores twangy prepared-piano; Fair Weather Friend features a boogie feel, Monkish chordal jolts and swing-style trills; and the three-part Little Suite is a lovely display of Law's classically immaculate sense of form and contrast. There is little to choose between the albums, though volume two might just clinch it for variety.

The Guardian