Gary Husband, The Things I See

The first thing to strike you about Gary Husband's piano playing on this recording is the spirituality, a fleetingness in touch reminiscent of JM's devotional acoustic playing during his Chinmoy days, or Alice Coltrane's journeys into the ethereal beyond. There's also a sense of innocence and searching that can be compared to Mingus' solo piano album, but with a hint of Bill Evans' melancholy thrown in. And then the next track hits you, and you might think this is where JM started to recognise "a truly new kind of recording". Husband plays the piano on this piece - the whole thing by the sound of it - not just the keys, but the strings, legs and lid as well! But this is not just vacuous pyrotechnics - it's true to the original context. Listen to that (I.O.U., 1981) and understand this reworking.

Whilst there's nothing simplistic about Husband's interpretations of Allan Holdsworth's music, stripping the often dense group arrangements away to reveal the more readily accessible solo voice does a great service to the composer. Drawing faithfully from the original palette of melodic and harmonic structures, the new interpretations are flavoured with swing (just hear Holdsworth's horn phrasings) and thunder, tears and a smile. I am only left wondering whether fadeouts were possibly used innappropriately in a couple of places. Apart from that, this recording rightly reidentifies the piano as a percussion instrument - and it took a drummer to do it!