Malakoff Kowalski – My First Piano (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 38:34 minutes | 621 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © MPS
Born in Boston to Iranian parents, brought up in Hamburg, and based ever since in Berlin, Malakoff Kowalski is no stranger to crossing borders. And genres too, as becomes clear upon listening to My First Piano, which slaloms between jazz, classical music and contemporary music. “My earliest childhood memories are of lying curled up under the piano stool, listening to my mother playing Bach, Brahms, Schubert and Scriabin. There are not many places or things that feel like home to me. Our family is scattered all over the world and that’s the only way I’ve ever known it. But having my old baby piano with me again, with its ivory white rounded keys, the decorated sound holes and the un-padded stool, just like back then—this all feels a bit like home.” This intimacy, this personal relationship to the music, these nostalgically-remembered sensations: all these small things, so important to Kowalski, permeate every note of this superb album. We move from sequence to sequence as if leafing through a photo album. Here, the shadow of Satie, there there St Germain-des-Près where Gainsbourg and Gréco joined hands, there a sketch à la Gonzales and so on. It’s an utterly beautiful internal journey. – Max Dembo
Tracklist:
01. Shorou 03:28
02. My First Piano 03:04
03. Is It Spring? 02:37
04. Dimanche Soir 03:09
05. Serge Chez Juliette Encore Une Fois 03:20
06. 65 East India Row 03:14
07. Euphoria, Lobster & Champagne 03:23
08. Olmo Rosenthal 05:09
09. Tehran Lullaby 03:16
10. Anin Goldkind 07:55
Personnel:
Malakoff Kowalski, piano
Download: