Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Poetry of Stillness: Luciano Troja’s “At Home with Zindars”

There are partnerships in jazz which burn bright in people’s memories despite the passage of time; Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, Billie Holliday and Lester Young, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. It makes for a perfect symmetry that the pianist Bill Evans (1929-1980), known for among other things, his finely nuanced delicacy and the composer Earl Zindar’s (1927-2005) partnership is less immediately known to the casual jazz fan but produced important and powerful music.
            Earl was born in Chicago.  He graduated from DePaul University and went on to earn a Masters Degree in Music Composition from Northwestern University. Shortly after this he was able to further his studies with Dr. Leon Stein and Walingford Riegger earning a Fulbright Scholarship to Oxford. He would also attend Columbia University (postgraduate) collecting many awards and commissions along the way including membership into American Academy of Letters.
            Like the best song writers, Earl’s pieces always allowed for the artist to put their own spin on a piece while the voice of the composer also remained ever present. Earl had a classical background and was equally at home composing within that genre. His non-jazz pieces have been performed by orchestras world wide.  He did not merely “jazz up” chamber like pieces nor did he attach classical filigrees to hang lead weight like off of the structure of a jazz piece.
            Bill Evans, one of modern jazz’s most influential pianists was a multi- instrumental, child prodigy (piano, flute and violin). He started formally studying piano and the age of six. As a teen he sometimes substituted as pianist in his older brother’s band, while a music scholarship to Southeastern Louisiana College allowed him to continue his formalized studies. Bill Evans was not one of those geniuses who was fully formed from the start.  In university he delved into Bud Powell and Horace Silver while also gleaning further approaches to the physicality of playing via his study of Bach’s piano pieces.
            Much like a great, secret recipe, the components that went into forming the artist can be known but not the direct measure of each. As a young man he was said to be the best boogie-woogie pianist in his area this early encounter with music so inherently of the gut and heart combined with the habit of reading his mother’s piano sheet music which allowed him to delve deeply into the works of Debussy, Stravinsky, Petrouschka, and Darius Milhaud, things of the mind, helped in creating the complexity of his musical identity.
            Bill Evan’s importance is in both how he played and his conceptualization of the piano trio. To be sure, there had been trios before his but it was the famous trio with  Paul Motian (drums) and Scott Lafaro (bass) where what he had been working towards was crystallized; radically changing how a piano led trio was perceived and what they could do. He brought a greater degree of improvisatory interplay to the trio format, where all three musicians equally contributed and explored but not merely at set moments within the framework of a piece.
            Bill Evan’s actual playing influenced to varying degrees most pianists who came after him and even added things to the palettes of his direct peers. He embraced the pieces written by Earl as they allowed for a showing of contrasts between a sort of sonic density and fragility; both brought forth by use of space and delicacy of how the melody was stated. Both composer and musician too were fond of unique time signatures, Earl working concurrently with Dave Brubeck as two of the first composers to have varying time changes occurring within one piece.
            The importance of Bill Evans impact on music can not be overstated and Earl’s compositions often proved to be the ideal vehicle, displaying both artists’ voices to best effect.  Regardless of medium, certain artists’ work, whether it is Claude Monet’s (1840-1926) “Water Lilies” or the recordings of Bill Evans, retain their power because although countless others may have discovered them previously they still manage to resonate personally to each person newly acquainted with the works. We all derive our own totems and meanings from the artist, fully individual like a snowflake yet part of a far bigger and older club.
            Bill Evans has had many albums which acknowledge his influence, tributes both direct and through artistic osmosis. “At Home with Zindars” is Italian pianist Luciano Troja’s latest album which celebrates the musical partnership between Bill and Earl, less a tribute album and more a valentine. The album is solo piano and made up of a program of songs penned by Earl the exception being “Earl and Bill” written by Luciano and “How My Heart Sings” written by Earl and his wife Anne. Earl had deep San Francisco roots, teaching composition for six years at San Francisco State University and regularly playing with the Ernie Heckshire Orchestra at the Venetian Room in San Francisco's landmark Fairmont Hotel. Luciano traveled to the bay area to spend time with Earl’s family who gave the project both their blessing and support.
            Luciano, like his hero, began playing piano at the age of six. Initially he was self taught and later would formally study via courses and clinics. Starting out self taught has allowed him to approach his playing via emotion first and technique second.
            “Mother of Earl” the first track shows the benefit of Luciano’s musical “upbringing”. Some times a piano player greatly inspired by an artistic antecedent feels the need to overly compensate, going beyond displaying the natural outgrowth of how their art evolved from that of their heroes and bogging the tension of a piece down in overly showy technique. Luciano is possessed of articulate tone but never at the sacrifice of delicacy which is needed for playing any piece associated or inspired by Bill Evans. The song has a tone poem quality about it switching moods from elegiac to sort of hushed joy and Luciano is able to deftly altered the cadence of his attack to follow suit.
            “Four Times ‘Round” is contemplative but never overly cerebral, a danger for all pianists possessing chops. The piano pattern here seems to rise and fall creating orchestral (like) swells, showing that Earl was not just a song writer but a composer. It has a beauty which unfurls like a flower to the sun. In his playing, Luciano’s influences as raw materials are visible but his musical identity is not merely frankensteined from them. The innate beauty of Earl’s writing comes through in his execution of the piece as does what resonated within the piece for Bill and the further possibilities his playing would introduce to it.
            “How My Heart Sings” a collaboration between husband and wife is the poetry of thinking of a beloved’s face and then feeling it almost as a physical presence. Rightful it has become a modern standard and the name of one of the better biographies on Bill Evans. It is slow and fragile like holding onto a good dream upon waking. The structure is similar to what one may encounter in 18th century classical piano pieces (Debussy, Albeniz, Granados et al). Here Luciano shows he can go gentle without the piece dissolving in his hands.
            Not all the pieces are taken at the same pace which sidesteps any possible feeling of monotony. The album is over an hour long with very good sound. It comes in a slip case with distinctive slip sleeve for the CD. There is a booklet which has bilingual essays by Luciano, a biography on Earl with quotes, remembrances from his family and brief excerpts from his letters. It is one of the better new piano CDs I have heard in a while.There are still many great up and coming artists emerging but far fewer poets, here is a chance to discover one.
           

            More information on Luciano:

http://www.lucianotroja.com/

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