Sanchez, Angelica

A Little House (solo piano)

Label: Clean Feed Country: Portugal

"Pianist Angelica Sanchez's debut solo record, features a beguiling mix of her own meditative, introspective compositions and free improvisations as well as very personal versions of pieces by Ornette Coleman ("City Living"), Hank Thompson ("I'll Sign My Heart Away"), and a Brazilian folk song ("A Casinha Pequenina"), translated into English for the album title.

Sanchez's piano playing is marked by its fluidity. She plays with tremendous ease and emotional involvement. As Carla Bley writes in a brief appreciation, "Every piece is like a story told to you privately. There are surprises, interesting structures and references, elegant, inventive language and astonishingly original content. Even the completely improvised pieces seem to have a plot." And when Ms. Sanchez turns to the toy piano, she evokes memories of John Cage's seminal "Suite for Toy Piano."

This is, simply, one of the most beautiful solo piano CDs issued in recent memory. Not to be missed by those who discovered her playing with the likes of Susie Ibarra, Paul Motian, Tony Malaby, Tom Rainey, Tim Berne, Kevin Norton, Mark Dresser, Wadada Leo Smith and Ben Monder."-Clean Feed