![]() ![]() Coyote-like, in thin air over a chasm, whereupon he has to scramble, flap his arms, claw at the air, and generally defy the laws of nature to get to the other side. What I pictured in my head was the whole band racing forward over a cliff and then suddenly they all stop but the pianist (that would be me) keeps racing, suddenly realizes that he’s hanging, Wile E. “Getting Out”, which I wrote for my album Wearing Someone Else’s Clothes, contains the scariest piano break of any of my songs. Nonetheless, improvisation is central to my concerts, and I build spaces into many of my songs where the players get to make their own way through the maze. I’m not really in those guys’ league my training (if you want to call it that) was more in blues and gospel than hardcore bebop playing. One of my favorite jazz players is Michel Petrucciani, who starts out with two screws and a washer and gradually builds a bulldozer that flattens all the walls. Thelonious Monk, on the other hand, gives the joyful sense of careering into corners and crashing into dead ends along the way. ![]() I’m always amazed to hear improvisers like Fred Hersch, who can find impossibly elegant but unexpected routes through that maze. ![]() In the best improvisation, it’s the soloist’s job to navigate the maze between the beginning and the end, with nothing but the most rudimentary map. ![]()
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February 2023
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