Jazz Articles about Martial Solal
About Martial Solal
Instrument: Piano
Article Coverage | Calendar | Albums | Photos | Similar ArtistsMartial Solal: Coming Yesterday: Live At Salle Gaveau 2019

by Chris May
In 2010, a British writer travelled to Paris to interview the pianist Martial Solal. The address he had been given was in the affluent suburb Chatou. On arrival, Solal's house struck the writer as something quite unlike the home of any other jazz musician he had ever visited, an haute bourgeoisie villa surrounded by an ornamental garden full of mature trees, the whole surrounded by a high metal fence. The French take their artists seriously and, on the evidence of ...
read moreMartial Solal: My One And Only Love: Live at Theater Gütersloh

by Dan Bilawsky
English poet Samuel Johnson famously and accurately remarked that He that runs against Time has an antagonist not subject to casualties." With that statement, Johnson essentially cut to the ultimate truth behind man's battle with mortality, the powers of change, and the swift dominance of the aging process. But he didn't say it all. What he failed to address was the other side of the coin--those rare few that, while still on Earth, manage to flip Time from adversary to ...
read moreStudent Ensemble and Martial Solal: Philadelphia, April 9, 2011

by Victor L. Schermer
Berklee Global Jazz Institute/ Boyer College of Music and Dance, Temple University Martial Solal Perelman Theater,Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts,Philadelphia, PA Saturday, April 9, 2011 This was the final concert of the 2010-2011 season of the popular Jazz Up Close series, celebrating the legendary Thelonious Monk, organized by pianist/curator Danilo Pérez. It consisted of two disparate sets. The first brought together young musicians from the Berklee Global Jazz Institute, based in ...
read moreMartial Solal: Live at the Village Vanguard: I Can't Give You Anything But Love

by Jack Kenny
"Tonight is a very important night because we recording the show. I have to be good and you have to be good too," Solal jokes to his Village Vanguard audience in New York, but it would not be surprising if the pianist felt some pressure. The few appearances that Solal has made in the US are startling, considering that he is one of the greatest pianists in the history of Jazz. Solal, born Algiers in 1927, has ...
read moreMartial Solal: Live at the Village Vanguard: I Can't Give You Anything But Love

by C. Michael Bailey
Martial Solal is a nuclear physicist of the piano. He tinkers with the subatomic structure of compositions, moving elements around, pulling them apart, and smashing them together in ways that both surprise and delight. Solal was born Algiers in 1927, settling in Paris in 1950 where he worked with Django Reinhardt and American expatriates Sidney Bechet and Don Byas. He has maintained an impressive creative profile for the past 50 years that involves solo, small group, and big band formats. ...
read moreMartial Solal Trio: Longitude

by John Kelman
Oftentimes the best free players are those with a firm footing in the jazz tradition. Few have demonstrated as uncanny an ability to straddle the line between form and freedom as Martial Solal, a European pianist who has eluded his due credit in North America. Like the slightly younger Paul Bley, Solal has an ability to take the most well-worn standard and transform it into something new; oftentimes nearly unrecognizable but always engaging and playful. Solal may lean hard to ...
read moreMartial Solal: Solal Seul

by George Kanzler
Lorraine Gordon has been trying to persuade pianist Martial Solal to return to the Village Vanguard ever since his unfortunately timed debut there, with a trio, in September of 2001, shortly after the 9/11 attacks. Solal, claiming he was too lazy at his age to travel to New York (he was 80 this August, 2007), kept declining the invitation.But this year, said Solal from his home in France, I called Lorraine and said I would come to New ...
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