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Claire Ritter: The Streams Of Pearls Project
by Bruce Lindsay
Claire Ritter's tenth album, The Stream Of Pearls Project, is inspired by water. More accurately, it's inspired by waters: rivers, lakes, brooks, ponds, cascades and their attendant beaches and shorelines. Ritter began the work in 2006 and over the next four years her travels took her to many different places across North America. The result is a beautifully crafted album, with an unusual instrumental lineup that Ritter uses with great ingenuity. Taken individually each of the tunes ...
Continue ReadingClaire Ritter: Waltzing The Splendor
by Dan McClenaghan
Pianist/composer Claire Ritter's expansive artistic vision comes into sharp focus on her ninth CD release, Waltzing the Splendor.
It's music that won't slip into a neat category, though “classical jazz"--if you must apply a label--might be as good a fit as you'll find for her highly melodic approach. And that sharp focus is laid out on a very wide screen, employing everything from delicate classical beauty to Monkish angles to rollicking stride grooves.Here, as on her ...
Continue ReadingClaire Ritter: Greener Than Blue
by Dan McClenaghan
Dichotomy prevails on pianist Claire Ritter's Greener Than Blue --rhythmic blues motifs versus peaceful impressionism; rags vs. tone poems; alternating west and east atmospherics; the rent party vying with the parlor. And still it holds together, thanks to the music's spare beauty and Ritter's always interesting melodic vision.Ritter delivers here on solo piano and in a reed/piano/drums trio with the occasional added viola, erhu, and various exotic percussion. The set starts out with a sort of mini-suite, a ...
Continue ReadingClaire Ritter: Castles In The Air & River Of Joy
by Glenn Astarita
Charlotte, NC-based composer/pianist Claire Ritter has earned numerous awards from various organizations while also teaching at the “New England Conservatory of Music” and garnering kudos for her works, which have been recorded by some of jazz’ best and brightest.
On Castles in the Air, Ms. Ritter spins a symmetrical web consisting of slightly disparate motifs that align into a cohesive series of frameworks, namely with the four-part, “Opus 17: New Southern Symphonic Suite for Modern Dance.” On this piece, Ms. ...
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