Lyle Mays - Solo-Improvisations for Expanded Piano '2000

Tracks list

Tracklist

1. This Moment
2. Let Me Count The Ways
3. We Are All Alone
4. Imperative, The
5. Procession
6. Black Ice
7. Origami
8. Lightning Field
9. Locked In Amber
10. Long Life

Lyle Mays has made his own albums infrequently, usually preferring to serve as
the keyboard player in the Pat Metheny Group. This is only his fourth album in
15 years, and it is his first on which he is the sole player. He had a solo spot
on the 1997-1998 Metheny Group world tour, and it when it ended Metheny
persuaded him to go into a studio in August 1998 and record his improvisations
on acoustic piano. This he did with very little in the way of prior composition,
his efforts not only recorded but also entered into a MIDI computer. With that
digital record of his performances, he proceeded to write orchestrations that
followed the soloing, played on synthesizers, thus, the title reference to
expanded piano. In practice, this triumph of technology comes off largely as an
ambient piano recording liable to remind listeners of both George Winston and
Keith Jarrett. The added effects are usually unobtrusive or at most atmospheric,
and Mays playing is attractive without being showy, typical for him. The music
is jazz in the sense that it is improvised and classical in the sense that it
is, in effect, composed after the fact. But most ears will place it as new
age.~William Ruhlmann

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