NoteBook – Solo Piano 3

Solo Piano III completes the trilogy of the Solo Piano albums.

Like any final act, it contains complications and consequences that are followed by the urgency of crossing the finish line. And like its predecessors, the album ends with a happy ending in C major but the path is punctuated by more dissonance, tension and ambiguity.

Solo Piano (2004) was released at a more innocent time, when Chilly Gonzales was a pioneer in the evocation of declining classical and jazz genres, pushing them into the 21st century. This album with its fortuitous virtuosity surprised everyone, including the self-proclaimed musical genius.

Solo Piano II (2012) has emerged as a small pop masterpiece for a connected world, a transition to a new reality. Now a legendary showman and collaborator with renowned and esteemed artists (Drake, Daft Punk, Feist), Chilly Gonzales unveiled a collection of catchy and refined songs, intended to please, showing that he was ready for prime time. This second opus undoubtedly satisfied a growing and ever more avid audience for Gonzo's imperfectly perfect miniatures.

Solo Piano III arises at a more problematic inflection point.

The collaborations continue (Room 29 with Jarvis Cocker, Ibeyi, Toddla T...) but Chilly Gonzales no longer seeks to please. Now he leaves the wrong notes. The mysterious chords and the singular structures become addictive and end up resonating in an unavoidable way. The first edition of the Gonzervatory, a school of ephemeral music, has just ended and the teacher has once again become the student he has always been and will always be, having no fear of letting the music speak for itself.

The musical purity of Solo Piano III is not an antidote in our time, it reflects all the beauty and ugliness that surrounds us.

This collection of scores gathers a selection of 9 pieces from the album faithfully transcribed. For many, these transcriptions will reveal a fine musical mechanism that is often misleading or even invisible to the listener. Their edition required choices to be made, the first being to offer pianists the most comfortable scores possible.

As a bonus, the scores of 2 tracks from the album "Chambers", a breath "Solitaire" and a happy end "Cello" neither major nor minor, but in 2-player mode (Piano / Cello).