CD Review: Ron Stabinsky - Free For One.

Ron Stabinsky (pno).
(Review by Lance).

Another 5 disks arrived today to be added the pile. Whether they'll ever even reach the listening, let alone the review, stage is debatable.

This one's been on the backburner for 2/3 weeks in the hope that I would come to grow and love it.

It didn't quite work out that way. 

Imagine you see someone for the first time and think I'd like to get to know him/her better. Eventually, you do and, at first, you're attracted until you realise you can't cope with their mood swings. The abrupt switches from hot to cold, attentive to distant, tender to abusive. It all becomes too much and you walk away. Hesitantly at first, you know there's something there but not enough to hold you. Maybe you give it a second chance, you go back and, for a while, life is a bed of roses - until you discover that roses can make you bleed.

Finally, you pack your suitcase and phone for a taxi to take you to the airport, on the way ordering a one-way ticket to the back of beyond.

Transfer the above scenario into musical terms and you get the gist of this CD.

Stabinsky is undoubtedly a talented and creative musician, seamlessly genre-hopping from contemporary improv to contemporary classical. An activity that is as frustrating as it is, occasionally, rewarding.

Lance.

Available on Hot Cup Records.

Sample.