"MAKING NOTES"

Howard Riley, solo piano.

Recorded at Goldsmiths College, London. 13 April 1997 SLAMCD 230

Bar Code 5 028386 023029

TRACKS:

1   Triplex                                     2m 27s

2   Emphatically                             3   55

3   Cloisters                                  4   23

4   Cloisters (take 2)                      3   25

5   Masquerade                             4   12

6   Afterthought                            4   26

7   Afterthought on afterthought      3   00

8   Blue                                        7   44

9   Tacit                                      2   18

10  Depth                                     3   14

11  One to eight four                      3   59

12  Incadescent                            3   46

13  Pact                                       2   53

14  Triplex (take 2)                         2   32

Hi-Fi News, October 1998 Fourteen meditations on jazz form recorded on solo piano at Goldsmiths College in April 1997. Riley has evolved an intriguing left hand/right hand independence. Evidently rooted in Monk, he adds his own sweeping romanticism too.  No Cecil Taylor hurricanoes, but intellectual rigour and blue notes still bite.  Solo piano can easily degenerate into rhapsody; Riley's focus makes each outing a gem As the department of harmonic and rhythmic science, jazz rarely sounds this bright and elegant.Terrific.

BBC Music Magazine, October 1998 Described by pianist Riley himself as a synthesis of his 'imitative' phase (the reproduction of bebop from recordings) and his later, 'non-imitative' phase (the achieving of an individual voice through playing free jazz), the wholly original music on this solo album (his 15th) consistently justifies his reputation as one of Europe's most gifted improvisers.  CP

Jazzwise, September 1998 In his revealing sleevenote to this album, pianist Howard Riley describes his approach to unaccompanied playing as a synthesis of his earliest 'imitative' phase (in which he absorbed and reproduced bebop from American recordings), and his later, 'non-imitative' phase, in which he embraced free jazz and found an individual voice.  The music on this, Riley's fifteenth solo recording, thus incorporates aspects - melody, harmony, rhythm, chord changes - associated with 'conventional' jazz, as well as apparently contradictory elements - no changes, no time, extreme textural and dynamic adventurousness - more frequently connected with 'free' music. The result is another utterly distinctive, absorbing vigorous album from one of Europe's most gifted and origianl pianists.