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SOLO: New Solo Piano CD Release coming August 1st

For immediate release

Contact: Geneya Brooks | Thirteenth Note Records | assistant@robertajazz.com www.robertajazz.com

 For a courtesy press copy of Solo either on CD or via mp3 download, please email: assistant@robertajazz.com

 
Artist: Roberta Piket
Title: Solo
Label: Thirteenth Note Records

CD Release Date: August 1st, 2012 

Thirteenth Note Records is pleased to announce the August 1, 2012 release of pianist Roberta Piket’s ninth CD and her first solo piano recording. “I get restless easily and I’m always looking for new challenges,” Roberta reflects about her decision to record, at this point in her career, a full-length solo album. Her most recent CD, Sides, Colors, explored the pastel shades and supple textures of an ensemble enhanced with strings and woodwinds. Love and Beauty, from 2006, presented her advanced concept of the modern jazz piano trio. And on her 2003 release, I’m Back in Therapy and It’s All Your Fault, she experimented with electric instruments and groove-oriented pieces.

So, for Roberta, a solo CD represents a new musical challenge, another fresh area of exploration, and the next step forward in her continuing growth as an artist. “This is the first time I’ve done a recording of almost all standards,” she continues. “I felt that for my first solo recording I wanted to start with material as fundamental and malleable as the standard repertoire, a common reference point that I am very comfortable with. After my last few records, this CD wasn’t so much about stepping out of my comfort zone. It was about finally stepping back into my comfort zone, and finding out if I still have something to say.” ”

­­­Grounded in both the modern jazz tradition and the works of the contemporary classical composers she admires, Roberta combines an infectious swing with an adventurous harmonic sense. Her playing, characterized by both a strong sense of direction and a striving for new territory, is at times melodic and pensive, at other times angular and dissonant.

Roberta has played professionally as a sidewoman with David Liebman, Rufus Reid, Michael Formanek, Lionel Hampton, Mickey Roker, Harvey Wainapel, Eliot Zigmund, Benny Golson and the BMI/NY Jazz Orchestra and has thrice been a featured guest on Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz, on National Public Radio. She has also performed with some of the most interesting musicians in European and American creative music, including drummers Klaus Kugel and Billy Mintz, and saxophonists Petras Vysniauskas and Roby Glod and Louie Belogenis. A gifted composer as well, Roberta was a finalist in the Thelonious Monk BMI Composers’ Competition.

Track List
  1. 1.       I See Your Face Before Me
  2. 2.         Monk 1: Variations   on a Dream
  3. 3.         Monk 2: Monk’s   Dream
  4. 4.         Something to Live   For
  5. 5.         Estate
  6. 6.         Nefertiti
  7. 7.         Claude’s Clawed
  8. 8.         Litha
  9. 9.         In the Days of   Our Love
  10. 10.     Beatrice
  11. 11.     Improvisation   Blue

 

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The Ritual Defacing of My CDs

We’re getting ready to send out a big mailing of my new Solo CD to press and radio. I once again find myself in the bizzarre position of having to mutiliate my CD packaging, because if I don’t, a small percentage of the CDs will end up being sold as new on Ebay for about two dollars.

A colleague of mine commented that he’s not bothered by this issue, because he doesn’t make the CDs to make a profit, but more to get gigs. It’s not that I expect to make a lot of money selling the CDs online. However, it’s degrading to see the brand new product of my blood and sweat practically given away on Ebay like a soon-to-expire bag of frozen peas on sale at Walmart.

I understand financial need, having been a professional musician most of my life. Some jazz writers get hundreds of free CDs every month. I understand they can’t listen to all of them. But selling them as new is greedy and wrong. It undermines the artist who trusted you to treat his/her music with respect, it undermines what’s left of the record business, and it undermines the music by cheapening it to the point where people think a song is worth, not even the lousy 99 cents itunes charges, but perhaps 20 or 30 cents.

So it comes down to this: Should I clip the corner? Write on the CD with a sharpie? Or just take the plastic off? (In the latter case it will have to be sold as “like new” or “almost new”.) I haven’t made up my mind yet.

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2012 Updates

My first ever solo piano CD is mastered and we’ll start sending out promo copies soon. The release date is September August 1. (We’ve moved it up!) After years of performing primarily with a trio, this has been a scary and exciting adventure. Of course over the years I’ve done a number of solo performances (including Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz three times) but doing a whole CD of nothing but solo was a great challenge and I learned a lot from it. I feel my musicianship has developed in ways it wouldn’t have otherwise.

I’m also excited that another CD I’m on will be released around the same time. As you may know, for the last few years I’ve been spending some time in Europe every year playing with several colleagues and friends there. One of the groups I regularly play with consists of Roby Glod (saxophones), Mark Tokar (bass) and Klaus Kugel (drums). They are all phenomenal musicians, and they’re all from a different countries (Luxembourg, Ukraine and Germany respectively)! We did a concert a couple of years ago in Luxembourg, and Klaus has decided to release the recording on his own well-respected Nemu Records. It will be called “Live at Op Der Schmelz”.

What’s cool for me about these two releases happening so close together is that they are so different. The solo CD is primarily standards. In fact it’s the first time I’ve done a record of almost all standards. I felt that for my first solo recording, I wanted to start with this foundation. By contrast, the quartet plays originals by all the band members, and we improvise very freely on them. As Duke Ellington said, “there are only two kinds of music – good and bad”.

My March concert at the Puffin with the large Sides/Colors Ensemble went very well. In addition to playing the arrangements from the CD, I wrote several new arrangements for four strings, four winds plus rhythm section. It was gratifying to see how my writing chops have developed. The four arrangements on the CD took about two years to refine to the point where I felt ready to perform and record them. By contrast, this year I wrote three new arrangements in a couple months and we had one rehearsal to try them out before performing them. Progress!

The musicians were great too! They did a phenomenal job. I was lucky to have great section players across the board who can also solo – even the strings! The world is changing indeed. I’ll try to post some video from the concert as soon as I have time. I’m looking forward to the next time I get to play with this group again.

In case you’re in NY, I’ll be returning to the classic piano trio format at Smalls on July 23rd. Click here to add it to your Outlook or Mac Mail Calendar. I’ll have Billy Mintz on drums, and his friend from way back, the great Putter Smith, on bass. Putter lives in LA and has been gracing NY with his wonderful musicianship with regular visits over the course of the last couple of years. We’re lucky to have him for this night. It’ll be an evening of standards from the jazz repertoire and the American Popular Songbook.

Looking ahead, on September 14th I’ll perform a solo concert in Baltimore at the beautiful An Die Musik performance space. Click here to add it to your Outlook or Mac Mail Calendarhttps://robertajazz.com/RobertaBaltimore.ics

Thanks for reading this far. Comments, suggestions, feedback welcome.

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At the Puffin in Teaneck March 31st: Roberta Piket Ensemble

Appearing at the Puffin Cultural Forum in Teaneck, NJ…

Roberta Piket & the Sides, Colors Ensemble

Come hear her eleven-piece ensemble play arrangements from Roberta’s recent release Sides, Colors

Critically acclaimed pianist/composer/arranger (and recent Teaneck transplant) Roberta Piket presents an evening of eclectic jazz and improvised music. Her unique ensemble comprises four winds (trumpet, clarinets, flutes and saxophones), string quartet as well as piano, bass and drums, creating a sound unlike any other large ensemble. The group will be playing music from Roberta’s recent release, Sides, Colors and brand new material as well. 

Roberta finds inspiration in 20th century classical music as well as in familiar jazz standards. The core of this eleven-piece ensemble is Roberta’s piano trio, featuring Billy Mintz on drums, and Yoshi Waki on bass.

PUFFIN CULTURAL FORUM
20 Puffin Way, Teaneck NJ
Saturday March 31st at 8pm
$10 Suggested Donation
Reservations Recommended
201-836-3499 ▪ tix@puffinfoundation.org

Click to add to Outlook or Mac Mail Calendar

 “[Roberta has a] distinctive technique of writing for a chamber setting” downbeat 

 Personnel:

Tom Christensen, Christine MacDonnell: clarinets, saxophones Anders Bostrom: flute, alto flute
Bill Mobley: trumpet, flugelhorn 
Fung Chern Hwei, Midori Yamamoto: violins
Benjamin von Gutzeit: viola
Adam Fisher: cello
Yoshi Waki: bass
Billy Mintz: drums 
Roberta Piket: piano, arrangements and some vocals

 Visit Roberta on Facebook
New CD, Sides, Colors, now available!
Watch “Idy’s Dance“: A Music Video!

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Last night of Euro 2012 Tour

Last night of my European tour – in Murcia Spain at Jazzazza with Masa Kamaguchi and David Xirgu. I’m looking forward to going home tomorrow but I also wish we had another week as the music just gets better as better. Fun! Thanks Masa and David! Also thanks to Roby and Klaus for the great gigs in Luxembourg and Freiburg.

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Workin’

Writing some new wind/string arrangements for my Puffin concert in March. Need some more pieces to supplement the arrangements on Sides, Colors.

I also want to give the guys a chance to blow, which they didn’t have on the CD. Doing an arrangement of Beatrice which will feature Anders Bostrom (although he doesn’t know it yet), and an arrangement of a new waltz of mine which I wrote for my cat Claude right before he passed away. I think we’ll do a couple of Mintz classics as well including Shmear and Idy’s Dance. (I was thinking we should have a multi-media installation at the concert so people can see the music video we made of Idy’s Dance while we play it.