Lyle Mays - Improvisations For Expanded Piano (1998)

Front Cover	Album Info
	Artist/Composer Lyle Mays Title Improvisations For Expanded Piano Length 48:40 Discs: 1 Tracks: 10 Format CD Packaging Jewel Case Label Warner Bros. Cat. Number 47284 Style Free/Avant Jazz; Post-Bop Rating Recorded sierpień 1998  at  Right Track Studios, New York

Musicians	Credits
Lyle Mays piano, synth.	Producer Pat Metheny Engineer Rob Eaton Mastering Ted Jensen Producer Steve Rodby Engineer Rich Breen

Track list

01 This Moment (Mays) 04:00 02 Let Me Count The Ways (Mays) 06:41 03 We Are All Alone (Mays) 10:32 04 The Imperative (Mays) 02:24 05 Procession (Mays) 03:58 06 Black Ice (Mays) 03:30 07 Origami (Mays) 01:08 08 Lightning Field (Mays) 03:42 09 Locked In Amber (Mays) 04:49 10 Long Life (Mays) 07:56

Notes

AMG Review (3): Lyle Mays has made his own albums infrequently, usually preferring to serve as the keyboard player in the Pat Metheny Group. This is only his fourth album in 15 years, and it is his first on which he is the sole player. He had a solo spot on the 1997-1998 Metheny Group world tour, and it when it ended Metheny persuaded him to go into a studio in August 1998 and record his improvisations on acoustic piano. This he did with very little in the way of prior composition, his efforts not only recorded but also entered into a MIDI computer. With that digital record of his performances, he proceeded to write orchestrations that followed the soloing, played on synthesizers, thus, the title reference to "expanded piano." In practice, this triumph of technology comes off largely as an ambient piano recording liable to remind listeners of both George Winston and Keith Jarrett. The added effects are usually unobtrusive or at most atmospheric, and Mays' playing is attractive without being showy, typical for him. The music is jazz in the sense that it is improvised and classical in the sense that it is, in effect, composed after the fact. But most ears will place it as new age. — William Ruhlmann