Storyville Releases Solo Petrucciani Album

One of my greater regrets has been the paucity of opportunities to listen to the jazz piano work of Michel Petrucciani that have come my way. According to my archives, I have written about only one album documenting a performance. The title of that album was One Night in Karlsruhe, documenting a live broadcast made by Süddeutscher Rundfunk on July 7, 1988. I wrote about that album on the date of its release over three years ago, January 11, 2019. This was a trio performance with Gary Peacock on bass and Roy Haynes on drums providing rhythm for Petrucciani.

I shall not repeat the biographical background material concerning Petrucciani’s genetic disease and his early death at the age of 36 on January 6, 1999. Since One Night in Karlsruhe provided my first opportunity to write about Petrucciani, I was generous in providing background. Those unfamiliar with that background can follow the hyperlink in the preceding paragraph.

courtesy of Naxos of America

A little over a month ago Storyville released a new album entitled Solo in Denmark. It documents the solo set that Petrucciani performed for the Silkeborg Riverboat Jazz Festival in Denmark on June 23, 1990 in the Silkeborg Church. The tracks include two Petrucciani originals, “P’tit Louis” and “She Did it Again.” Thelonious Monk receives the same amount of “track attention” with Petrucciani’s unique interpretations of both “Round Midnight” and “Blue Monk.” There is also a track for Bruno Martino’s “Estate,” composed in 1960 and receiving a generous amount of attention from a diverse assortment of jazz players during the ensuing decade. Those performers included Chet Baker and Monty Alexander. The final track of the album appears to be Petrucciani’s encore selection, a medley that combines several favorite standards with a few of “Miles Davis’ Licks” (as described on the back cover of the album).

While the opening two tracks run for only a little more than five minutes, the following four run between seven and eight and a half minutes. One of these is the “Round Midnight” track. Given how many times this was recorded by Monk himself, each with its own improvised licks, one has to be drawn to the amount of original invention that Petrucciani brought with him on his visit to Denmark. This involves several ambitious (if not a bit disorienting) ventures into off-beat rhythms that establish Petrucciani’s capacity for unique interpretation.

Petrucciani was fortunate enough to establish his reputation during the final quarter of the last century. If one evokes the standing-on-the-shoulders-of-giants metaphor (without being demeaning of Petrucciani’s own physical stature), 1975 offered up an impressive diversity of those shoulders, including Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis (including both of his quintets), and John Coltrane. Petrucciani clearly exploited the benefits of history, which then equipped him to establish his own inventive paths. Solo in Denmark provides the attentive listener with the opportunity to experience and appreciate the diverse scope of those paths.