Andrew McCormack (piano)
A solo album by Andrew McCormack has to be checked out even though some of the tracks were first put down in 2016. Listening again in 2019, he decided there was something there and that it was worth developing further which he has duly done.
Like so often in contemporary jazz piano music it is sometimes difficult to draw a line between jazz and modern classical piano. Is there actually a line? If there is, does each listener's positioning of that imaginary line differ?
These are unanswerable questions and who cares anyway? Even the non-original pieces on this delightful album could pass as being by some East-European with an unpronounceable name.
McCormack describes Jimmy McHugh's I Can't Believe That You're in Love with Me as having a light nod to the Tarantella from Stravinsky's Pulcinella, even though, he says, it sounds nothing like it!
Nobody Else But Me seems to have been popping up a lot lately and here McCormack makes reference to Strav's ballet Petrushka.
One of the things I love about McCormack's playing are his mood swings. The neo-classical, the bluesy feel, the uptempo and the down tempo. Not many of the great jazz pianists changed rhythms in mid stream, possibly because they still thought of it, subconsciously, as dance music. McCormack has no such inhibitions he simply lets the music flow in whichever direction it takes him.
For All We Know is a reflective exploration of a lovely tune - I suspect McCormack is the last jazz romantic! There are others, and no passengers!
Lance
Dreamcatcher; Crystal Glass; Nomad; Wee See; Adagio; Shaper Maker; I Can't Believe That You're in Love With Me; Weeds; Prospect Park; Nobody Else But Me; For All We Know.
The album is released by Ubuntu Music (UBU0059) on June 26 along with a Facebook live concert launch on the same day at 7:30pm.
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