BRUNO HEINEN- Mr. Vertigo
Babel: BBDV18151
Bruno Heinen piano; fender rhodes
Recorded October 2017 by Ali Ward at the Vortex Jazz Club and by James Gardiner-Bateman at Word of Mouth Studios
Heinen, a graduate of the Royal College of Music, is equally at home in classical and jazz idioms, although as the title of one of his earlier collections (‘Postcard to Bill Evans’), it is a jazz that has a crystal clear delicacy in its delivery.
This collection is his sixth for the Babel label and finds him working pieces which combine composition and improvisation, often under constraints that he has set to challenge himself. So, example, track 2, ‘Hommage a Kurtag’, is played with just the two index fingers (inspired by Gyorgy Kurtag’s compositions to to reflect children’s first experiences of learning to play the piano), or track 9, ‘In kochi’, employs a Carnatic scale he encountered on a visit to India, or track 4, ‘Virgo’ involves a duet with a Stockhausen music box. Elsewhere, he works from fragments of themes (drawing from Debussey for track 1, ‘Forgotten images’, or Wayne Shorter for track 3, ‘Daydreamer’), or reworks tunes from Jimmy Rowles (track 5, ‘The Peacocks’) and James Taylor (track 10, ‘Fire and rain’).
What you also get in the playing here, are fine examples of the ways in which Heinen counterpoint in his playing – that is, the pieces explore the ways in which two ‘voices’ can be harmonically linked together while being unrelated in rhythm. When you first learn the principles of counterpoint, you have a simple repeating phrase that underpins the developments, as you progress in ability, this ‘cantus firmus’ becomes less obvious until, in free counterpoint (as in this set), there is only an improvised set of themes against which contrapuntal phrases are played. The result is a series of pieces that sound very much like the work of several people playing together but also apart. That it is the work of one person recorded live (with the exception of some overdubs on track 6, ‘Mirage’ – and even these are primarily to stretch out or distort the notes rather than to add additional lines) is all the more impressive. It took me several listens to fully appreciate how special this recording is, and to appreciate Heinen’s rare talent. My guess is that seeing him play live would be spell-binding.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Babel: BBDV18151
Bruno Heinen piano; fender rhodes
Recorded October 2017 by Ali Ward at the Vortex Jazz Club and by James Gardiner-Bateman at Word of Mouth Studios
Heinen, a graduate of the Royal College of Music, is equally at home in classical and jazz idioms, although as the title of one of his earlier collections (‘Postcard to Bill Evans’), it is a jazz that has a crystal clear delicacy in its delivery.
This collection is his sixth for the Babel label and finds him working pieces which combine composition and improvisation, often under constraints that he has set to challenge himself. So, example, track 2, ‘Hommage a Kurtag’, is played with just the two index fingers (inspired by Gyorgy Kurtag’s compositions to to reflect children’s first experiences of learning to play the piano), or track 9, ‘In kochi’, employs a Carnatic scale he encountered on a visit to India, or track 4, ‘Virgo’ involves a duet with a Stockhausen music box. Elsewhere, he works from fragments of themes (drawing from Debussey for track 1, ‘Forgotten images’, or Wayne Shorter for track 3, ‘Daydreamer’), or reworks tunes from Jimmy Rowles (track 5, ‘The Peacocks’) and James Taylor (track 10, ‘Fire and rain’).
What you also get in the playing here, are fine examples of the ways in which Heinen counterpoint in his playing – that is, the pieces explore the ways in which two ‘voices’ can be harmonically linked together while being unrelated in rhythm. When you first learn the principles of counterpoint, you have a simple repeating phrase that underpins the developments, as you progress in ability, this ‘cantus firmus’ becomes less obvious until, in free counterpoint (as in this set), there is only an improvised set of themes against which contrapuntal phrases are played. The result is a series of pieces that sound very much like the work of several people playing together but also apart. That it is the work of one person recorded live (with the exception of some overdubs on track 6, ‘Mirage’ – and even these are primarily to stretch out or distort the notes rather than to add additional lines) is all the more impressive. It took me several listens to fully appreciate how special this recording is, and to appreciate Heinen’s rare talent. My guess is that seeing him play live would be spell-binding.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
