The Grammy-award winning Arturo O’Farrill, in preparing for his first-ever solo piano performance in concert at the Noguchi Museum in Long Island City, New York, worked out the initial parameters during a Wednesday night residency at Puppet’s Jazz Bar in Brooklyn. Then, he simply set up a piano in the one of the museum’s galleries after closing time and played — recording the entire album (due July 10, 2012 from ZOHO Music) in one continuous sitting. Inside that performance, however, new vistas were achieved, as O’Farrill adds stirring colors and splashes of improvisation to composed songs about family (“Alisonia” and “In Whom” dedicated to his wife and son, respectively; and “Mi Vida,” celebrating the lengthy marriage of a favorite aunt and uncle), his complex ancestral roots (“Siboney” and “Oh, Danny Boy,” from Cuba and Ireland) and larger issues of conscience (“The Delusion of the Greedy”). Elsewhere, there are Charles Mingus and Randy Weston covers, but the album’s high point is found on the improvisational gem “Once I Had a Secret Meditation,” where O’Farrill’s delicate balancing of whites and darkness, of density and lightness, takes full flight.
‘Half Notes’ are quick-take thoughts on music from Something Else! Reviews, presented whenever the mood strikes us.
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