Richie Beirach - Leaving

[mjzee]

Release date May 12:

Pianist-Composer Richie Beirach Re-Imagines Well Known Jazz Standards in Stunning Solo Piano Concert at France's Château Fleur Cardinale Forty-five years after his first solo piano recording, Hubris, done at Tonstudio Bauer in Ludwigsburg, Germany for ECM Records, with Manfred Eicher presiding as producer of the session by the 30-year-old pianist, Brooklyn-born Richie Beirach returns to that intimate and revealing setting on Leaving (Jazzline). A live concert at Château Fleur Cardinale in Saint-Etienne-de-Lisse, in the St. Emilionregionnear Bordeaux, France, this collection of jazz standards he has played innumerable times over his long and illustrious career finds the the 75-year-old pianist plumbing new depths of emotion and heights of expression in a highly exploratory program. I've never recorded a whole CD of standards playing solo piano, said Beirach. Usually in concert I present original material or I just play a lot of free improv stuff, but this time I wanted to go back and play these tunes again solo in front of a live audience. And I was amazed at the things that I found. Performing on a 9-foot Steinway grand piano before an intimate gathering of 120 people in a French chateau wine tasting room, Beirach puts his own unique stamp on timeless standards like Nardis, Solar, 'Round Midnight, Footprints and Some Other Time. Throughout the concert, he also strings tunes together in unexpected medleys, like What Is This Thing Called Love?/Alone Together/Blue in Green and Spring Is Here/Maiden Voyage/Monk's Dream/You Don't Know What Love Is. And while he incorporates such devices as reharmonization of themes, rhythmic reinvention, counterpoint and motivic development, Beirach is also mindful of incorporating the swing factor into his interpretations of these standards.