Search - Uri Caine :: Solitaire

Jazz Elephant.....

Christopher Dee | Chappaqua, New York | 07/13/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"You know the story of the blind men and the elephant, where each blind man thought an elephant was like a wall, like a rope, like a spear, like a sail, like a tree, depending on which part of the elephant he happened to have gotten hold of? Uri Caine's music is like that.



Caine is a volcanically creative musical thinker who also happens to have spectacular keyboard technique. You may get to know him first from his work as a sideman with Don Byron on the popular Don Byron Plays the Music of Mickey Katz; or (as I did) on Bug Music, one of the best CDs of the 1990's; or with Dave Douglas (The Infinite; Soul on Soul); or from his uncannily beautiful adaptations of Gustav Mahler for a hybrid jazz ensemble; or from his reimagining of Bach's Goldberg Variations; or from his own small-group recordings like Blue Wail, or the excursion into Latin-flavored jazz called Rio; or even (like a singer I met) through his charming, complex soundscape of the 1910's and 1920's, The Sidewalks of New York. Get the idea?



But even though I know his recorded music well, and have seen him perform, this CD was a revelation to me. It contains fifteen solo piano pieces, the shortest about two and a half minutes and the longest a little more than six. All but two are originals. This is not easy music by any means, but it is beautiful, virtuosic, and rich; after many listenings it continues to reward attention. I love "Sonia Said": the first eight bars take a yearning, three-note, V-shaped motif through several keys in quick succession, very much like the first movement of A Love Supreme; the second eight form a phrase that tries to resolve but fails heartbreakingly, then tries again and succeeds. I also love to hear Caine channelling Bud Powell in "Beartoes"; and the episode in "Country Life" where he travels higher and higher up the keyboard, and then, when he can go no higher, signals the end of the solo by breaking into triplets, like tying the bow on a package.



The best way to approach this album may be by starting with tracks ten through fourteen. First listen to "Snort," a good-natured neo-stride romp, as if James P. Johnson had worked with Thelonious Monk's chord vocabulary; then "All The Way," a Jimmy Van Heusen showtune through the looking glass. Then comes the even more abstract, almost Webern-like "Twelve"; and finally a joyous "Blackbird," yes, the Beatles tune, which sounds as though it's going to get a music-box-like, almost childlike treatment, before it heads for the open road. That's just a little more than 18 minutes out of your life, but it's more music than you get on several CD's by all but a handful of jazz musicians. I hope you'll buy this album and enjoy it; but you will have encountered only one little part of this fascinating musician's creativity."

...I take a book down from the shelf

jive rhapsodist | NYC, NY United States | 07/18/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The first track, Say It In French, announces the disc. This is what we are going to get: sovereign virtuosity, a beautiful sound, a hard swing with a kind of Giant Steps - period linear vocabulary, a lot of crunchy dissonant intervals. It's extremely impressive - truly great piano playing.I am less sure about the clarity of the improvisational voice; I am blown away by the playing, but not as much by what is SAID. There are even some Guaraldi-ian moments (Roll On), not that that's a bad thing, but combined with some Marcus Roberts-y Gospelisms...it's perhaps a questionable aesthetic. Or perhaps not. Maybe it's really Jazz for the Post-Modern era, where pantheons and canons fall and are reassembled moment to moment. Anyway, if you love the piano, you will love it - also because of the incredible recorded sound. I'm sure Caine would hate me for this, but it's like Stefano Bollani with taste. Caveat: fast things all seem hurried - a little TOO fast! Let's be clear: this is one of the great piano discs of our time, but is it one of the great piano discs of ALL time? Not sure..."