Solo improvising is allowing both the question and the answer to get shaped right then, in the moment.
Creating a program of solo piano music is the ultimate challenge for any improvising pianist. The music on my latest album, Ways of Disappearing (Sunnyside), is really improvised—I just started playing—but the end result is not a stream-of-consciousness performance, nor does it come out of nothing. It comes from years of applying a certain approach to the artistic practice. You have to be very focused, get close to every detail, to see, as the great modern classical composer Paul Hindemith said, the whole piece in a flash.
Playing solo is unique because you have to contend with everything at once: improvisation and composition, form and pacing, duration and rhythm, interacting with the audience (if live) or the empty space (if in a studio),. It’s not easy, keeping it interesting without resorting to shtick, to what works.
