Gleb Kolyadin - Gleb Kolyadin

Review Gleb Kolyadin - Gleb Kolyadin

One thing becomes quickly clear when listening to this album: Gleb Kolyadin is an ingeniously resourceful pianist, and not just in the field of Prog Rock. It also becomes clear that apart from the piano, there is no need to demonstrate Kolyadin's diverse and imaginative expressive possibilities also on the keyboard. On the contrary, the keyboard-influenced songs are among the weaker ones of this album. It also becomes very clear that it really does not need any players to put the piano arts of a Gleb Kolyadin in the right light, let alone those who do more than they should do, such as Jordan Rudess in "Storyteller". Outliers are otherwise less the subject of the seasoned accompaniment of powerful Prog musicians on the album with Gavin Harrison, drums, Nick Beggs, bass, Theo Travis, saxophone and flute, Vlad Avy, guitar, Evan Carson, Irish frame drum, Grigori Osipov, vibraphone , Marimba and Glockenspiel, Jordan Rudess, K, as well as Mick Moss and Steve Hogarth, vocals whose color and character deserve a special mention in the vocal addition of some color to the album as well as the flute-playing saxophonist reminiscent of Jethro Tul.

Russian pianist Gleb Kolyadin became known beyond the circle of dedicated Prog fans for his duo album iamthemorning which won the 2016 Progressive Music Awards for Best Album. Together with singer Marjana Semkina, the pianist achieved a stroke of genius here, which is due to both his fantastic partner and himself, as both harmonize almost supernaturally on the emotionally charged duo album. The new album does not quite achieve the high level of the duo album. May be this is partly due to the fact that the musicians were not together in a single recording location but playing and recording in different studios independently of the others, which is not uncommon nowadays. This does not have to be beneficial for the recording project for lack of spontaneous mutual inspiration. May the next album of the classically trained pianist be the solo album that one would have expected under the pianist's title of the current album.

It is not that the new album would not mirror what makes Gleb Kolyadin unique and fits him into the phalanx of individually different, improvising pianistic greats such as Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett: A strong will to create something of one’s own, a sound of one’s own and a style of one’s own inspired by Beethoven and Liszt in the case of Gleb Kolyadin, as well as by Keith Emerson. From the old and the new arise planned and spontaneously modified compositions, which are released in a very virtuosic manner via a grand piano, casting a spell over the amazed listener.

Gleb Kolyadin, grand piano, keyboards
Gavin Harrison, drums
Nick Beggs, bass
Theo Travis, flute, saxophones
Vlad Avy, guitars
Evan Carson, bodhran, percussion
Steve Hogarth, vocals on “Confluence” and “The Best of Days”

Gleb Kolyadin - Gleb Kolyadin

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