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Howard Riley

Short Stories (Volume Two)

SLAMCD270

Volume One (on ESProductions, recorded in 1998/99) was also a double, solo-piano album dedicated to shortish pieces, which, in Riley's own words, enable him to develop 'stories': 'the concision leads to an ever broader range of feelings, techniques and concepts'.

This is certainly true of this album, recorded in 2004 and 2006: Riley is justly celebrated for his ability to spin cogent, wholly original and utterly individual improvisations from a variety of musical kernels, including melodic motifs, nervy rhythmic figures, walking basslines, even relatively conventional 'heads', and on Short Stories (Volume Two) he employs a peerless technique and an extraordinarily fertile musical imagination to produce thirty pieces (the longest just over six minutes long, the shortest just over two) that engage listeners' sensibilities like the work of few other musicians.

Sometimes his extemporisations are spun off their cores like sparks from Catherine wheels; others are more ruminative, exploring themes that are only hinted at or which emerge unpredictably like the tops of submerged mountain ranges, hinting at, but never wholly displaying their underlying structure; still others are more conventional, setting cascading right-hand runs and trills against rich left-hand chords or rumbling basslines.

Whatever his approach, though, Riley consistently produces the most intensely thoughtful and absorbing solo-piano music you're likely to hear; while it's not 'easy' listening (being utterly lacking in glibness or flash), it richly rewards however much attention you're willing to give it.