The Art of the Piano

Jessica Williams' Art of the Piano music is different but equally rewarding. Like Rossano, she deeply understands the instrument. In fact, one of the great pleasures of this solo love recital is Williams' liner-note essay on the piano--wide awake and compelling. Here are two passages: "After Gould [a video of Glenn Gould playing the Goldberg Variations] I no longer wanted to play like most of the Jazz pianists played; left hand comping chords and right hand playing ultra-fast lines in a mad competitive dash to finish first. In Jazz too often the fastest player is considered the best player. But in music of the heart, speed is only one facet in an arsenal of tools for self-expression." And "When [Bill Evans] played solo, it was about touch and song and drama and pain and joy. It was about romance and sorrow and longing." Williams has found that "music of the heart," and The Art of the Piano has moments that evoked gospel-tinged Blues, passages of stormy Romanticism, a thoughtful but rocking exploration of Satie...but ultimately she sounds most fervently like herself, without assembling the official collection of Jazz Piano cliches for us. She has her own voices, and they are eloquent--her playing is powerful without being melodramatic or violent, pensive but never static.