Adam Baruch’s Review of “Seeing Sky”
Australian born pianist / composer John Bostock, living in Israel since the late 1980s, is one of the most interesting musicians active in the country. Active in the fields of contemporary Classical Music, Improvised Music and Jazz, he has won several important awards for his classical compositions. His Jazz activities include many performances and recordings, with two albums as a member of Albert Beger’s group and a piano trio album Journey To Gythia from 2004.
This new album collects Bostock’s solo piano pieces, recorded over a period of eight years. Except for one standard, he composed all the music,which ranges from completely improvised pieces and spontaneous compositions to improvisations on written themes. It might come as a great surprise to the listener to find out how beautifully melodic this music is, even when completely improvised. Full of lyricism and melancholy, the melody lines come and go, shifting in the shadows of the music. The sound quality is exceptional and the piano sounds completely realistic with great presence and sound clarity. This is a real gem and a true piece of musical bliss – an island of serenity in the havoc that surrounds us all. Highly recommended!
November 28, 2010 at 2:39 am
I also found that listening to the album is a magnificent and a mysterious ride.
John’s music is so accurate and fluent, as if it was dictated. Yet this calm and peaceful performance, with imaginative, particular and smart ideas in varied moods, was miraculously achieved in live improvisation or real time composition.
The language introduced here is surprisingly fresh combining ideas that could be derived from different musical worlds, such as classical, jazz, western or Israeli but are brought up in a subtle way into a beautiful, coherent and contemporary piano solo album.