Satie: Gymnopédies & Gnossiennes cover

Satie: Gymnopédies & Gnossiennes

Composer
Recorded
Released

Jazz pianist Jacques Loussier is perhaps best known for his swinging trio arrangements of music by Johann Sebastian Bach, music that lends itself particularly nicely to that kind of treatment because it tends to be melodically attractive, harmonically complex, and rhythmically quite square – take a Bach melody and swing it, and the results are almost always really fun. But unlike Bach, Eric Satie was a willfully weird composer, and the piano suites he titled Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes are slow, repetitive, and sometimes written in free time, which creates some challenges for putting them into a jazz setting. But Loussier does a fine job here – much of the music may be hard to recognize, but the arrangements are gorgeous; note in particular the busy bass part on the second variation on “Gymnopédie No. 1.”

Rick Anderson

Suggestions
Echo Canyon cover

Echo Canyon

Art Hirahara
Cage: Electronic Music for Piano cover

Cage: Electronic Music for Piano

Agostino di Scipio, Ciro Longobardi
For Now cover

For Now

Billy Hart, Fred Hersch, Brian Landrus, Drew Gress
The Journey cover

The Journey

Lionel Loueke
Heart of Memphis cover

Heart of Memphis

Robin McKelle & The Flytones
Dream in the Blue cover

Dream in the Blue

Sara Gazarek, Josh Nelson
Biosphere cover

Biosphere

Florian Weber