by Ben Hogwood
What’s the story?
Howe Gelb is a seasoned musician of many projects, so it is entirely within character to see him popping up with a solo piano album for AKP Recordings.
Made in his Arizona dwelling, it is a private affair, with Gelb on the piano in an adobe room insulated with denim, ensuring the acoustic is intimate and without reverberation.
Discussing the album, Gelb says, “Nature is in itself an improvisation. It can never be an accurately nor consistently planned thing. It should also be noted an extreme climate resonates with emotional wherewithal. Thus, these captured pieces of pianistic atmospheres are simple paintings of the horizon, a semi still life, the net result of allowance, and never intended to be drawn again. Resonance achieved via residence.”
What’s the music like?
Listening to this album gives the impression of eavesdropping on a pianist from the room next door. Gelb’s conversational way of playing is at once appealing, the soft tones of the piano providing an ambience like no other.
The musical language is simple but in a rewarding sense, like an Erik Satie Gymopèdie might be. Weathered itself wears a distracted look, as though the pianist is preoccupied with looking out the window, but Barometer is more structured and completely charming. There is light humour in Coffee vs Rain and Puddle Jumpin’, and a touch of humidity in The Promise Of Thunder.
Gelb’s melodies have light inflections and ornaments, suggesting a jazz influence that sits in the middle ground. Although the reverberation is deadened by the recording conditions, Gelb keeps the sustain pedal down for much of Rhapsody In Cloud Formation, the pitches colliding softly with consonant overtones until an unexpected ending in the lower pitches.
Perhaps the most meaningful piece is the extended central opus, The Sky That Can’t Make Up Its Mind. Here the thoughts and moods are varied, at times going off centre but then coming back, exploring each end of the piano with a youthful mind. There are sudden sharp bursts of clarity and a surprisingly discordant centre, before the piece comes home to rest having traversed all the moods.
Does it all work?
It does. With an intentionally lazy, improvised approach, Gelb has made an instinctive album that allows the mind to wander.
Is it recommended?
It is. Weathered Piano is a pleasing anecdote to the more clinical piano sound served up alongside many a morning coffee. It is a charming piece of work, a more than pleasant distraction for home listening.
For fans of… Erik Satie, Chilly Gonzales, Joep Beving
Listen and Buy
Published post no.2,189 – Saturday 25 May 2024
Arcana.fm 