The four artists (Jessica Williams, Denny Zeitlin, Arturo O?Farrill, Gabriel Zufferey) who make up this quartet of splendid new solo piano recordings are careful and thoughtful in their choice of both notes and spaces. The performances collected here are clearly about expression.
In concert at Seattle?s The Triple Door, on Songs of Earth Jessica Williams? concept and technique are grand and symphonic but fall, as she rightly says, into no category or genre. The individual pieces suggest a full spectrum of moods and colors as does, says Williams, the Earth. ?Joe and Jane? is a kind of hymn in tribute to the men and women in the military, the mood sorrowful but also rhapsodic, working as a
hopeful prayer for peace. The one tune not composed by Williams is John Coltrane?s ?To Be?, where she avoids any particular stylistic approach but seeks what Coltrane means to her in terms of freedom and invention. Williams? latest influence, she notes, is Spanish guitarist Carlos Montoya, disliked by critics for straying from traditional form; his daring and bravery in doing so inspires Williams on her dedicatory tune ?Montoya?. The pianist?s understanding is revealed in her ability to suggest the mercurial passions of the guitar and the Spanish forms he both played with and transformed.