We saw her at the January Brussels Jazz Festival in Flagey. With her trio, Greek pianist Tania Giannouli delivered an impeccable set. On stage, she arches her back gracefully over the piano, sometimes light, sometimes torrential. A moving performance. On SOLO, she is alone with her piano, and it's just as moving. "Playing solo is the most liberating of things," she writes on the cover. "Being alone with my instrument gives me an incredible sense of freedom. And yet, nothing is more demanding than a solo recital. It's because you can only rely on yourself, and you must allow yourself to be vulnerable. The solo is a very personal journey, a story told without a filter."
Tania Giannouli's journey is a magnificent one. It's also generous. Twenty-four tracks across seventy minutes of music that doesn't impose itself but distils its sensations; it's up to the reader to interpret them and build this journey with her. There is a strong sense of tradition in this music, the relentless left hand chasing a rhythm as in Erik Satie's pieces. And a lot of audacity, playing on breaks, on notes immediately drawn from the strings, on sudden sound effects, on rhythms that sound electronic, and with a degree of minimalism too, looped melodies, subtle changes, density but not profusion, talent but not ostentation. Listen to "Intone", "Broken Blossom", or "Spiral", for example. This is great art.