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Michael Robinson: Jeweled Saddle
by Hrayr Attarian
Multi-instrumentalist, composer and inventor Michael Robinson is an idiosyncratic artist whose prolific output is split between piano improvisations and performances on his own invention, the electronic keyboard, the meruvina. Over his career, Robinson has been heavily influenced by Indian traditional music as well as the stylings of such luminaries as alto saxophonist Lee Konitz and clarinetist Benny Goodman, among others. His 2024 Jeweled Saddle draws on these diverse sources of inspiration. It contains a single 50-minute meruvina piece ...
Continue ReadingMichael Robinson and Anindo Chatterjee's Reinterpretation of Standards
by Hrayr Attarian
After releasing several albums with drummer Eliot Zigmund in 2022, pianist and composer Michael Robinson starts off 2023 with a series of collaborations with tabla master Anindo Chatterjee. Similar to his other duo and solo sessions these are long improvisations on popular tunes both from the Great American Songbook as well as some rock and roll standards. Two of these releases are highlighted Below. Michael Robinson Begin Azure Miles 2023 The restless Begin, ...
Continue ReadingNot Like Before: Michael Robinson's Jazz Without Borders
by Michael Robinson
Playing my personal vision of jazz, claiming that name as part of my heritage, I endeavor feeling the rhythms of life in the present, past and future, entering into them through touch and nuance at the piano, connecting rajas, sattva and tamas; circular movement, cohesion and disintegration. I've been fortunate to know masters of improvised music personally from jazz, Indian classical and rock. From jazz, I studied improvisation with Lee Konitz, later becoming close friends. From Indian classical, I first ...
Continue ReadingThree Gems from Michael Robinson and Eliot Zigmund: Earth and Sky, Runs to Sea and What Magic
by Hrayr Attarian
Keyboardist and electronics innovator Michael Robinson is a prolific and imaginative musician. In 2018 he started re-exploring the acoustic piano and, during the solitary times of the COVID-19 pandemic, his solo piano recordings increased dramatically. In 2022 he met up with drummer Eliot Zigmund and over three days the duo reinterpreted and deconstructed several standards. Zigmund is known for his collaborations with such legendary pianists as Bill Evans and Michel Petrucciani and has also led a few superb sessions himself. ...
Continue ReadingMichael Robinson's Piano Improvisations: Seven Albums of Unique Takes on Standards
by Hrayr Attarian
Keyboardist Michael Robinson is a prolific and creative artist who is best known for his haunting, Eastern-inspired, musical soundscapes. He usually utilizes his own invention, the digital Meruvina, for these recordings. Robinson, however, is also an accomplished pianist and has self-produced several superb solo albums of piano improvisations. In 2021 and 2022 he released seven of these intriguing recordings, each consisting of two to five long tracks. They cover mostly jazz standards mixed with a few pop songs.
Continue ReadingMichael Robinson: Piano Improvisation Series
by Karl Ackermann
Depending on the source, New York native, Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist/composer Michael Robinson is associated with the electronic, classical, world, or jazz genre. The ambiguousness is a byproduct of an artist whose more than one-hundred-sixty albums have touched upon all those categories. Robinson's influences include Bartók, Yeats, Chinese poetry, Morton Feldman, Lennie Tristano, John Coltrane and Lee Konitz. He has been particularly immersed in the music of North India producing more than a decade's worth of releases on his Azure Miles ...
Continue ReadingMichael Robinson: A Parrot Sipping Tea
by Hrayr Attarian
Over the past several years, composer and keyboardist Michael Robinson has delved deep into the South Asian musical traditions. Using his own invention, the Meruvina, he creates, digitally enhanced, soundscapes filled with mysticism and spirituality. On A Parrot Sipping Tea he continues his explorations in the form of a singular interpretation of the traditional Indian raga, with its four segments. “Alap," for instance, is usually improvised and is a melodic intro to the raga. Here Robinson uses it ...
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