Stephen Grew

Little known in North America, Stephen Grew is a veteran UK pianist who often works with fellow improvisers like saxophonists Evan Parker and Trevor Watts and as part of the electronic quartet Grutronic. On his own he turns out highly inventive and crystalline solo piano sessions like this one, the third he’s recorded for Discus Music during the past couple of years.

Recorded in the airy interior of Lancaster University’s Great Hall, the three tracks are completely improvised, with no electronic attachments. But Grew is no minimalist aesthete nor heedless pounder. He may ease into the expositions with carefully chosen single notes or intermittent pauses, but once up to speed he blends extended sequences of lively and energetic keyboard expansions with subtle pivots into briefer counterpoint that often focus on strumming internal piano strings for acrid patterns, rumbling pedal point patterns or melodic transformation.

While at points it may sound as if he’s nimbly exposing sounds from all 88 keys at once, he manages to maintain precise narratives. Plus he almost never prolongs the expected. During the penultimate elaborations of  “Fire 2” for instance he exposes a beautiful lyric passage of caressed keyboard notes, only to follow it almost immediately with chiming and scrapping inner string projections. Before that he seesaws between formal patterning from higher notes that sound almost notated , with syncopated swing emanating from the pressurized lower notes.

During the expositions of all three extended improvisations he occasionally suggests that his repeated note consolidation will soon turn into a standard melody only to abandon that suggestion and scoot into free-floating extemporizations. Additionally while preferred tempos throughout are galloping prestissimo, waves of vibrating soundboard pressure evolve at a slower pace. Plus on the final “Fire 3” he confirms his multi-faceted approach by assembling  a delicate suspended single note melody and inserting it in-between speedier and speedier syncopated keyboard pressure on one side and stopped key and string cadences on the other.

Solo work has always measured the skill and talent of a pianist. The ever burning but carefully arranged Fire show Grew’s mastery of each.

— Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Fire 1 2. Fire 2 3. Fire 3

Personnel: Stephen Grew (piano)