By Paul Acquaro
Overall, while entirely improvised, the music captured on Cosmic Piano feels structured around a certain slowness. This does not mean that the tempo is slow, but rather somehow time feels partially suspended, unhooked from the normal ticking of the clock. The opening track, ‘The Cosmic Piano,’ starts the recording with a gently throbbing pulse and rich blocky chords. Short passages with contrasting tempos are interjected, but they serve
as a transition between thoughtfully placed rich chord tones. The music unfolds with what could be mistaken for composed modern classical music. Then, the track ‘Cosmic Junk Jazz DNA’ starts by exposing the basic sequences of jazz piano – intervals that convey the sound of jazz are woven between anchoring events, deep notes from the far left side of the keyboard slam up against sharply phrased, tension filled chords from the mid-field, fragmentary melodies help carry the ideas forward.
‘Orbit Light’ is a burst of energy. Big, powerful chords are delivered with certainty, the mood is dramatic as the melodic and harmonic ideas act in unison. Classical leaning passages, complete dissonance and stark, naked phrases flow together, again with a slow and purposeful deportment. In ‘Piano’s DNA Upgrade,’ one can hear the stem cells being injected, growing new healthy piano music cells. The approach is lighter, but there is still an oozing slowness below, connecting the many components, feeding the newly forming cells, growing with organic intent. A true slow burner is ‘Suburban Outerspace,’ in which spacious chords at the outset expand with lush tones and questioning melodic lines, pensive and avoiding expected resolutions.
Each track on Cosmic Piano stands apart, each one has an identify, but they are also very much of a piece. There is consistency and intent in this improvised music, it sounds like it was always meant to have been played this way, except that it has not, rather this is fully improvised music, composed by the cosmos. Cosmic Piano sits alongside contemporary classical music just as well as it does avant-garde jazz, it is definitive musical statement.