Mention Alan Glen and immediately you think of the swingingest jazz pianist around. Oscar Peterson, Bud Powell, Hampton Hawes; his bedfellows. The Great American Songbook his daily bread.
However, I've been listening to some of his many original compositions. Not his jazz pieces which too are in profusion but some classical originals composed and recorded by himself.
Think Bach, Chopin, Scarlatti and Dohnanyi then you're in the right frame of mind to appreciate Alan's folio of Arabesques, Nocturne's, Preludes and Sarabandes.
As Alan rightly points out in his liner notes the masters of the salon were the great improvisers of the day and, had Alan been born 300 years ago in Germany then, on the strength of this work, Glen would surely now be a as familiar a name as say one of the lesser Bachs in the world's concert halls.
Lance.
Can you tell us where we might be able to have a listen? Has Alan recorded a CD (you mentioned liner notes)?
ReplyDeleteIf you Email me I'll put you in contact with Alan.
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