Piano’s Underground

Piano playing has always been a favorite of mine.  But I’m not very good at actually playing it, so I like to listen instead.  Classical piano has always been the forefront of music on the keys, but my favorite kind of playing is when classical forms are transitioned to the music I listen to.  More specifically, symphonic and jazz genres.

In my last few posts, I talked about a band I went to see up in the cities called Kamelot.  The keyboard player for Kamelot, Oliver Palotai, is an amazing pianist.  Even during the show he broke out into a couple keyboard solos, showing his classical background.  But the best part of these kind of players is that all the music they make is pure emotion.  Think back to the most famous classical pianists and tell me that they didn’t put heart into their playing.  The music I’m talking about here is today’s version of what was.

I can tell you that I’ve seen many great piano players, including Herbie Hancock, Oliver Jones and what almost could have been Oscar Peterson, but without my ability to play like them, I may be a little bias towards how good they truly are.  However, many of you probably don’t play as well as the greats, so I will assume that you’re all on the same wave length as me.

So since you know all of these great pianists already, I’m not going to say go and listen to them.  But instead I’ll pass on a couple names that you most likely are unaware of.  In the last few months I was lead to a piano player through a metal band called Pyramaze.  Naturally you might think that this player is too intense for you because he’s in a metal band.  Well, you’ll have to see for yourself.  His name is Jonah Weingarten, he just released his first, self-released, classical piano CD called Dance of the Mourning Child. Link goes to his MySpace page.  He currently has 4 songs off his new album on his MySpace page for you to listen to.  You can even download a full version of one of his songs from that page.  Check him out, he’s very good.

Before I mentioned someone named Oliver Jones as one of the greats I’ve seen.  That name is probably not recognizable to most of you, but he is an amazing pianist.  Oliver grew up in Canada and learned how to play piano from Mr. Oscar Peterson himself.  I was able to see him this year at the 35th Annual International Association of Jazz Educators (IAJE) conference in Toronto.  Unfortunately his presence there was to honor Oscar Peterson who had pasted away less than a month of this conference.  He played a few songs with the remaining members of the Oscar Peterson Quintet that was very powerful.  So if you were a fan of Oscar Peterson at some point, who isn’t right?, then I suggest that you check out Oliver Jones.  He has many albums released, however, he’s not very promoted online.  But I’m sure you would be able to find his albums at the major stores.

Rock, BC