Martial Solal - Live In Ottobrunn - 2CD DIGISLEEVE

The unexpected always seems logical with him, wrote one critic. On "Live in Ottobrunn" Martial Solal proves this from the very first note: Only one D is heard at first, which keeps you on tenterhooks until a pianistic whirlwind follows: expressionistic disharmonies dissolve into blue notes, glissandi runs lead into long sustained chords, classical motifs merge with echoes of half of jazz history. Everything is rhythmically varied in a highly complex way, without ever falling out of time.

And only slowly does the standard emerge that provides the melodic basis: "My Funny Valentine". As if under a burning glass, the first piece of the performance now documented as a double album at the Ottobrunn concerts in December 2018 thus already shows the entire high art of the "leading French jazz pianist," as it understatedly says in the encyclopedia: Martial Solal, who has just turned 95, is a solitaire in the history of jazz, indeed in the history of music.

"Live in Ottobrunn" is nothing less than the shining last example of the outstanding importance of Martial Solal. As a link between tradition and modernity, between genres and styles, between his predecessors and descendants. And for the core of jazz that is reflected in his style: In a miraculous way, the sum of the many twists and turns makes sense to him in retrospect.
For the moment, for the respective piece and in the end for the whole album. A legacy.

Line up:
Martial Solal | piano

Track Listing
Disc 1
My Funny Valentine
Historie De Blues
Tea For Two
Duke Ellington Medley
I’ll Remember April
Lover Man

Disc 2
Improvisation
Coming Yesterday
Happy Birthday
Here’s That Rainy Day
Round Midnght
K in Duet, Improvisation
My One and Only Love