Most people believe that growing up and getting older goes hand in hand with acquiring more knowledge and wisdom. It may be comforting to think that life teaches you things, and there is often some truth to it. However, to me, there is also a parallel, deeper reality at work.
The more I know, the more I need to unlearn.The music in this album, made during two very different sessions, using the invisible ink of improvisation, is about this mysterious and ever growing part of unknown which makes me create, forget, and create again. Jean-Michel Pilc
After listening to Jean-Michel’s solo piano recording, which he sent us from Montreal, Anne de Jong (at the time, general director of Challenge Records) and I discussed a new release. Jean-Michel had already planned to come over to Europe for concerts and masterclasses, so I suggested to arrange a studio recording session in The Netherlands. The result is Parallel, a double album of two solo piano recordings conceived in totally different time frames, at both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, which turned out to be a perfect match. The studio album is a series of Jean-Michel’s inventions based on composed repertoire. The Montreal album is improvised music, all recorded in just one take.
For me, solo piano music gets straight into the heart of a composition, in its purest form. Parallel is an intriguing and exciting journey in Jean-Michel’s realm of composed and improvised music, which makes you want to listen over and over again. Jasper Somsen
CD 1
1 Idea Please - One
2 Minor Issue
3 Footprints
4 Shooting Star
5 Idea Please - Two
6 Days of Wine and Roses / Someday My Prince Will Come
7 Enescu
8 Idea Please - Three
9 Jpj
10 Iwp Blues
11 Idea Please - Four
12 Liza
13 Homecoming
14 Idea Please - Five
15 Your Lullaby
16 Words
17 Idea Please - Six
18 The Girl from Ipanema
19 Three for Two
20 Idea Please - Seven
21 My Beautiful Flower is Pink
22 Idea Please - Eight
23 Mr. R.B.
CD 2
Cells, Pt. 1
2 Parallel
3 Like Someone in Love
4 Cells, Pt. 2
