Camjazz
2009
Live At The Village Vanguard - I Can't Give You Anything But Love
About This Album
When you speak of piano virtuosos like Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson, Martial Solal also has to be included in the conversation. Every concert is a happening and each recording an event, and at age 80 he shows no signs of slowing down. The evidence is irrefutable as displayed on this solo piano offering, recorded live at New York City's Village Vanguard, where an overflow house witnessed the mastery of Solal in all his glory. His limitless ideas in changing the nature of a jazz standard with every bar and phrase is nothing less than showstoppping, making you wonder just when he'll exhaust his treasure trove of extrapolated concepts, long after you would think it impossible for any human being to go further after mere minutes of listening. Yet time and time again Solal reinvents melody, pushes the envelope far beyond convention, gives you little hints of tunefulness just to tease, and lets you know he is always cognizant of form or style, and is in complete command. After stating to his audience that "I have to be good," Solal completely reworks the well-worn standard "On Green Dolphin Street" with an abstracted intro, an arpeggiated melody, and deft key changes as he steams up and down the ivories in spiral-staircase fashion, eventually loping, then romping.
Track List (try tracks 2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9)

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