"Magical and elusive. . . . Something special. . . . Pellegrin's imagination never flags. . . . This is music I'll be returning to both for deep listening and for inspiration."
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Solitude
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Having released three powerful, boundary-crossing quintet records, pianist Rich Pellegrin now presents a contemplative album of free improvisations. Recorded at a quiet church on Whidbey Island, near Seattle, Solitude captures the spirit of our age—the abundance of unstructured time, desire to reconnect with the land, and wandering through the wide-open spaces of our minds.
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Praise for Solitude
Delicate and deliberately rendered beauty. Magical and elusive ... Something special ... Pellegrin plays with impressive economy and discipline ... Pellegrin's imagination never flags ... He has met one of the toughest challenges in modern music; how to create something new, simple and direct without it sounding bland or clichéd ... This is music I'll be returning to both for deep listening and for inspiration. There are plenty of rewards … More homespun than a Jarrett solo outing, more classical than Tatum. A comfortable pastoral middle ground. |
'Solitude: Solo Improvisations' unites the language of 21st-century jazz and neoclassical music to create something curious and spiritual ... The album is genre-less but not formless; inspired and reflexive yet a result of great study and intention ... Pellegrin creates a musical document that almost begs to be heard in one sitting. The cat plays deep and never loses your attention. Many of them resist easy patterns or melodies and sort of exist in their own space, but a few are more contemplative and have a radiant glow. A pianist with a deft sense of touch and a good feel for melody ... Pellegrin is able to make himself heard without making a lot of noise. |
Despite or just because of the short duration of each snapshot, it is much more in-depth than most of what is currently offered under the banner of 'new wave of piano.' The album works as a suite ... Each track flows effortlessly into the next ... [A] thoughtful and grounding study ... Pellegrin invites the listener to do just that—to turn the mind inward, reflect on the many modes and meaning of our own solitude, and to examine and marvel at how it feels to exist within the self. The artist is in front of his blank canvas and rediscovers the darkest shades with a poignant beauty ... small epiphanies that do not even tell stories but arouse moods of impressions, fleeting moments of life ... An album to be listened to on headphones with a mind free from all thoughts. |