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Belgian artist Bram De Looze links baroque, avant garde and highly-refined jazz improvisation on new album ‘Colour Talk’.
Plunging into the depths of sinuous musical structures, Bram De Looze is a talented young jazz musician who evokes contrasting moods that harmoniously follow on from one another. The Belgian pianist and composer’s distinct musical vision has found its way through both solo projects and collaborations. His unique technical skill and musical maturity have earned him considerable critical acclaim back home as his work spotlights his far-ranging interests – from traditional classical piano music to jazz and solo improvisations that have often been compared to Keith Jarrett and Jason Moran. On the 21st February 2020, Sdban Ultra will release his highly anticipated new solo album, ‘Colour Talk’.
Over the past few years, De Looze could frequently be heard with kindred spirits like Stéphane Galland, Dre Hocevar and Antoine Pierre but it was a visit to the historical collection of pianofortes of Chris Maene that inspired De Looze to release his first solo album ‘Piano é Forte’ (2017), and it received critical acclaim for its creativity, spontaneity and passion. He would later garner further acclaim working alongside fellow Belgian Robin Verheyen and American rhythm painter Joey Baron with whom he recorded ‘MixMonk’ (2019), a tribute to the legendary jazz pianist Thelonius Monk.0
Bram De Looze’s solo career took off in an unexpected way with ‘Piano e Forte’, a project for which he approached historical instruments from a contemporary perspective. The switch to the Chris Maene Straight Strung Grand Piano for ‘Switch The Stream’ (2018) indicated a renewed search for movement, evolution and introspection. His latest solo project ‘Colour Talk’, continues this trajectory with another revolutionary piano model, designed by lauded architect Rafael Viñoly, and a continued attempt to renew from within.
On ‘Colour Talk’, what you hear is a musician who has freed himself from stylistic constraints and limitations. While still rooted in jazz, classical music and free improvisation have found a new balance, a coexistence that enables the pianist to express himself with a new vigour. Switching between shorter pieces that feel like curious, unresolved puzzles and more extended explorations, ‘Colour Talk’ is once again an ode to (re)invention in the grey zone were the classical idiom and improvisatory urges meet, with the 13-minute tour-de-force of ‘Hypnosis’ as one of several undisputed highlights.
