CONCERT AT COOPER UNION
Connie Crothers,
solo piano, NA1002
By John Sutherland
Connie Crothers' 1984 solo concert is a totally different experience. From the opening piece, Carol's Dream, dedicated to Carol Tristano, the pianist's powerful two-handed style, percussive and explorative, is evident. In her treatment of standards, initial melodic lines are soon dispersed in heavy chordal patterning (All the Things You Are), in fragments of melody (You'd Be So Nice to Come Home to), or into a Cecil Taylor other-worldliness (What is this Thing Called Love). Yet with the Rodgers-Hart I Didn't Know what Time It Was, her sudden descent to a crystal-toned delicacy permits the lyrical aspects to blossom with
awe-inspiring beauty. Her closing Trilogy is a study in mood shifts, ranging from deep foreboding to a spirited explosion of joy. There is a deliberate perversity, a controlled angularity, an intellectual intensity about everything she plays; if she swings, it's to her own inner sense of rhythm. All this can both challenge and fascinate the listener. It takes us a long way from a McShann or a Grappelli. But then jazz isn't a traveller with the past strapped firmly to its back. It seeks new vistas, new means of expressing its response to such changes. That's what makes it so interesting and rewarding.
CODA Magazine, November 1, 1992
MORE REVIEWS
quartet
Connie Crothers Quartet, Music is a Place
Tom Greenland, All About Jazz: New York
June 9, 2008
Connie Crothers Quartet, Music is a Place
Bruce L. Gallanter
Downtown Music Gallery Newsletter
June 29, 2007
Connie Crothers Quartet, Music is a Place
Stuart Broomer, Signal To Noise
Issue #48, Winter 2008, p. 75
duo
Connie Crothers - Bill Payne, Conversations
Marc Medwin, All About Jazz: New York
November 2008
Connie Crothers - Bill Payne, Conversations
Chris Kelsey, www.jazz.com
August 27, 2008
Connie Crothers - Bill Payne, Conversations
Scott Yanow, L.A. Jazz Scene
July 2008
solo
Connie Crothers
Solo Set at the 2008 Vision Festival
John Sharpe, All About Jazz
June 2008
Connie Crothers, Music fromEveryday Life
Frank Rubolino, onefinalnote.com
September 2001