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MICHEL BISCEGLIA Singularity and My Ideal PROVA RECORDS PR 1401-CD22

Singularity

Puccini

Meaning of the Blues

Jasmine

Lonely Woman

Choosing

Singularity

Augmented Tree

Don’t Explain

Passion Theme

My Ideal – alternative takes (bonus album)

My Ideal

The Epic

Out to Sea

Red Eye

Paisellu Miu

A Whiter Shade of Pale

N’n Siata

Michel Bisceglia (piano); Werner Lauscher (bass): Marc Léhan (drums)

Recorded 2013, Crescendo Studio, Genk [56:58 + 41:00]

These two discs are released in a card slipcase; Singularity is the main focus with alternative takes from the trio’s My Ideal being included as a bonus album. Though both discs carry different catalogue numbers it’s Singularity’s that is the catalogue number for both discs.

Michel Bisceglia is a Belgian pianist of Italian origin. With his trio he crafts a tremendously lyric and richly chorded sound world here. He’s a fluent and fluid improviser, calling on Blues lexicon once in a while and in Jasmine seemingly extending a stylistic hand to Keith Jarrett, loose and fairly funky, if without the Back Roads feel of early Jarrett. There are hints of melancholy in Lonely Woman, appositely, whilst Choosing sports quite a loquacious drum solo from Marc Léhan and if the title track somewhat flatters to deceive – to me it’s somewhat vaporous - one can’t fault the instrumental finesse on show. There are hints of Satie in the pensive lines of Augmented Tree where the percussion shimmer is welcome. A rare example of a standard is Don’t Explain but it’s played allusively, whereas the final track, Passion Theme, shows his penchant for dappled right hand runs and warm chording, underpinned all the while by Léhan’s drumming and Werner Lauscher’s ever-dependable bass.

My Ideal has seven tracks, of which the title track is elegantly played without ever quite getting rid of the feeling that it’s all a touch dull and lacking in variety. Maybe McCoy Tyner is an influence on something like The Epic where the music’s undulating virtuosity and shimmy percussion packs a punch. Out to Sea is a romantic reverie, full of rippling filigree whilst taking on A Whiter Shade of Pale was quite a challenge. He succeeds in de-Baching it and plays with quite allusive sidestepping. This is the less successful of the two discs but even so there are things to hear that will please.

Jonathan Woolf

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