COMPOSERS: Various
LABELS: Slam
PERFORMER: Howard Riley (p)
CATALOGUE NO: SLAMCD 244
This album utilises all the musical vocabulary Riley has acquired over the past quarter-century: his trademark walking basslines under ringing, wonderfully cluttered right-hand improvisations; his delightful visits to ‘disguised’ standards (‘Lover Man’); his tumbling runs interspersed with clanging percussiveness.
The result is music of rare power and strange, pungent beauty. A genuine original at the peak of his powers. CP