Playscape Recordings officially welcomes back New York–based pianist/composer Ted Rosenthal to its roster with Impromptu, his first recording for the label since 2002. This release finds Rosenthal’s two year-old trio, featuring bassist Noriko Ueda and drummer Quincy Davis, reinventing music by Brahms, Chopin, Mozart, Puccini, Schubert, Schumann and Tchaikovsky for the classic jazz piano trio format.
“For the past few years, I have regularly performed my jazz arrangements and improvisations on themes from the classical repertoire, both with my trio and as a soloist,” recalls Rosenthal in the liner notes. “My goal is for the music to sound like a natural, unforced jazz presentation. It feels very natural to craft these pieces into forms like that of the Great American Songbook. I like to play them with the ease and familiarity of a favorite standard, and the harmonic progressions lend themselves to similar harmonic re-workings that I do with the American standards. For me, playing jazz on these classical themes is an exciting coming together of traditions.”
Tracks: Out of this World; So In Love; Have You Met Miss Jones; Prelude #2; Embraceable You; People Will Say We're in Love; Lotus Blossom; How Long Has This Been going On?; Cry Me a River; In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning.
Ted Rosenthal: piano; Noriko Ueda: bass; Quincy Davis: drums.
Playscape Recordings
