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Roberta Piket: West Coast Trio
by Victor L. Schermer
This album brings together New York-based pianist Roberta Piket with two outstanding musicians from the Los Angeles area: bassist Darek Oleszkiewicz and drummer Joe La Barbera. Hence the title “Roberta Piket: West Coast Trio." To spice things up, Piket brought along her long-time cohort Billy Mintz on percussion on one track, and special guest guitarist Larry Koonse on two of them. The result is an interesting blend of West Coast “cool" and sophisticated New York mainstream that pleases the ear ...
Continue ReadingBilly Mintz: Ugly Beautiful
by David A. Orthmann
Consisting of seventeen tracks spanning over two hours of playing time, Ugly Beautiful is a large, sprawling, wise, unflinchingly honest, powerful work of art. Billy Mintz's third recording as a leader--all of which were made in the most recent decade of a fifty-year plus career--stubbornly refuses to conform to stylistic boundaries and gleefully defies expectations of any kind. The record demands to be taken on its own terms. Trying to pin labels or anticipate the course of almost any track ...
Continue ReadingBilly Mintz: Ugly Beautiful
by Dan McClenaghan
Drummer/composer Billy Mintz has a long career of enhancing the music of others with his percussive artistry, everyone from saxophonist Lee Konitz to pianist Hal Galper, to clarinet master Perry Robinson. His own discography as a leader is small, with frequent revisitations of a handful of original compositions that are as distinctive and as worthy of the multiple version approach as the music of Thelonious Monk. He writes small masterpieces and turns his ensembles loose on them, resulting in a ...
Continue ReadingRoberta Piket: Focusing on the Music
by Kathy Sanborn
Native New Yorker Roberta Piket is a pianist who loves to explore the more inventive territory of jazz and improvised music. A gifted composer, she was a finalist in the Thelonious Monk BMI Composers' Competition. Her latest album, One for Marian: Celebrating Marian McPartland, reached JazzWeek and CMJ Jazz Top 50. Piket graciously shares a bit of her own career philosophy with us, along with helpful tips on how to flourish in the music business of today. ...
Continue ReadingTake Five With Roberta Piket
by AAJ Staff
About Roberta Piket Born in Queens, New York, Roberta inherited a passion for music from both her parents. Her father was the Austrian composer Frederick Piket, who made significant contributions to both the musical liturgy of Reform Judaism and the concert hall with works performed by the New York Philharmonic under conductor Dimitri Metropolis. From her mother, Cynthia, she absorbed the glories of the American Songbook, learning the tunes (and accompanying lyrics) of Porter, Gershwin, Kern, Rodgers, and Berlin. Roberta ...
Continue ReadingRoberta Piket: One for Marian
by Victor L. Schermer
In 1945, as World War II came to an end, Marian McPartland (1918-2013) moved from England to the United Sates with her then husband, trumpeter Jimmy McPartland. She had already achieved some notoriety as a pianist on radio shows and with the USO, and in the U.S., with her husband's encouragement, she found a secure niche as a jazz pianist, leader, and composer, most notably as a house pianist at the famed Hickory House in New York, where many greats ...
Continue ReadingRoberta Piket: One For Marian: Celebrating Marian McPartland
by Karl Ackermann
A young, unrecorded artist is asked to share her talents, sitting in a chair that had been warmed by Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, Brad Mehldau, Mary Lou Williams, Dave Brubeck, Chick Corea and Dizzy Gillespie to name just a few of the legends who graced Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz series. It says a great deal about Roberta Piket, that McPartland would welcome her into the fold of this company and now Piket pays tribute to her host with One For ...
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