Limitless Possibilities

“I know it’s going to be very exciting,” New York-based pianist and composer Jacky Terrasson tells me, as we listen to musical sketches for his next recording project. “I’m already feeling ‘Wow.’ I want to take this new group on the road and see how the music is gonna evolve.”

Not even four months after the release of his seminal new solo record Mirror, Terrasson is firing on all cylinders, practicing Brahms and Chopin on his Steinway grand piano, touring solo across Europe and the United States, and writing for his next project, which merges computer-based grooves with angular piano lines. “I like contrasts, I like extremes,” he says. “If I were a painter, I would want to have a palette with a lot of colors. A lot of bright things, and some darker things, and some obscure things. I’m seeing music very much in images.”

It was this kind of contrast that brought Terrasson to the forefront of jazz piano some 15 years ago, and has kept him there ever since. Since winning the Thelonious Monk International Piano Competition in ’93, Terrasson has released ten critically acclaimed albums as a leader, each one infusing a rare combination of history and possibility. His orchestral explorations of the standard jazz trio format have earned him legions of fans across the globe and, in many ways, have rewritten the rules of just what the pianist’s role should be in jazz.

“There are some things that just work,” he tells me, sitting in his music studio on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. “Like the combination of piano, acoustic bass, and drum set. That just works. But you have to find other ways of presenting the music so it stays fresh, and interesting, and most of all, that you have fun as the performer. Because honestly, if there was a way it had to be, I would be out of here so fast. If I can’t make that moment on stage a fun and challenging experience, I’ll just quit.”

Terrasson delivered a shock to the jazz establishment with his eponymous major label debut in ’94, and has continued to blur the boundaries ever since. While many of his contemporaries released tribute albums that seemed to yearn for yesterday, Terrasson paid tribute to the essence of jazz — possibility. He would take the almost-expected trio format and quickly turn it upside down, with a varied repertoire and a sense of adventure and playfulness at the keyboard. This seemingly schizophrenic approach to the piano would become a Terrasson signature.

“There are probably more than two sides to my musical personality,” he says. His subsequent records confirm this exploration of the entire musical and pianistic spectrum — the deconstruction of the piano trio on Jacky Terrasson, Reach, and Alive; the expanded sonorities and compositional structures on What It Is; and the blending of innocence and intensity on A Paris and Smile.

With the arrival of Mirror, his latest solo recording on Blue Note, Jacky Terrasson’s playing once again defies categorization. From the torrential downpour of running notes on Duke Ellington’s “Caravan” to the playful and harmonically adventurous ballad “Juvenile,” Terrasson meets the inherent challenges of playing solo head-on, refusing to allow the format to define just what or how he will play. An almost perfect melding of instinct and inspiration, Mirror is a career-defining moment for the 41-year-old Terrasson.

MIRROR, MIRROR

“I’ve wanted to do this for many years,” Terrasson says of recording his first solo record. “In fact, I had been talking about it for four years before actually recording it. But it’s such a self-conscious thing. I kept postponing it, pushing it back. And also, you always think, ‘If I practice this more, in six months it will sound better.’ This kind of project forces you to get naked to an extent. At the beginning it was such a mind twister. I was going to call the record Mirror, Mirror. Finally, one day you just go in and do it.”

Terrasson approached Mirror with the same orchestral sensibility of his earlier records, playing the entire piano, inside and out. “I still think the piano has so many sounds to give if you’re willing to go fetch them. That’s what the approach was. I’m trying to make this as much a musical statement as a pianistic one. At the end, I was hoping that anyone who listened could see my musical identity there.

“Before recording the album, I had been doing solo concerts for about a year,” he says. “And I love it. There’s a freedom that’s not accessible anywhere else. There’s a sense of really trying to be above, of seeing the concert from beginning to end before it’s started. Giving a shape to that whole 90 minutes. Obviously, with solo, you have more control of the thread — all the dynamics, the silences. Sometimes in the middle of the third song, I’m already thinking, ‘Okay, this is going to lead-up to the last song of the concert.’ And that’s great.”

Terrasson’s approach to playing solo piano challenges the limits of the instrument — he plays all over the piano, in and out of time, with a dynamic range as wide as his imagination. “When you’re playing solo, you really want to exploit the whole piano. Solo is an opportunity to not be in sync with bass and drums. If you feel like, ‘Okay, this could slow down a little bit,’ then you just slow it down a little bit. You are in control.”

ALONE TOGETHER

“I certainly thought of some things I wanted to do on this recording,” Terrasson tells me. “I wanted the record to have a sense of playfulness, of having fun. Also, not having too much of a serious, cathedral-type thing hanging over it. That’s where the challenge was.”

Terrasson produced Mirror on his own, recording 25 tunes over a two-day period. “For some previous recordings, I had a global image or concept, like A Paris, for instance,” he continues. “But for this one, everything was laid out on its own. We had a list of tunes and just recorded everything.” Out of the initial 25, 11 would make the final cut.

The songs on Mirror showcase the many sides of Terrasson’s musical personality — a playful stomp through “Cherokee,” the plaintive, Jarrett-tinged reading of “Everything Happens To Me,” the modern, shifting harmonies and rolling bass figures on “Mirror,” and a fresh reading of Carole King’s “You’ve Got A Friend.” The album is a musical snapshot of an artistic renegade at the top of his game, continually on the move.

“I knew ‘Cherokee’ was going to be in 7/4, and what I wanted to do was basically just blow,” he says. “’Caravan’ I knew would have the percussion part, and then there are some more pianistic, technical things like ‘Mirror,’ but actually now, live, the music is so much different from the record. I wish I had recorded it last week when I was playing in Boston.”

Terrasson is as comfortable improvising on standards from the Great American Songbook as he is navigating the popular song. On ’01’s A Paris, he pays homage to his French lineage and the songs from his childhood. On ’02’s Smile, he sees no blasphemy in the marriage of Bud Powell, Spike Lee, and Stevie Wonder. Duke Ellington may have said ‘There’s only two kinds of music — good and bad,’ but Jacky Terrasson preaches it, record after record.

“I don’t really care where the material is from,” Terrasson continues. “If there’s a nice melody, if I like the form, if the chords are cool — basically, I play what I like. That’s what jazz musicians do. They improvise on familiar material.”

For a seasoned pro who’s used to the interplay of a band and the feedback of an audience, the solitude of recording solo posed it’s own unique challenges as well. “It’s a strange feeling, being in this big room and playing for nobody, staring at your belly button,” he confides. “It’s not very natural. If I had to do it again, I would do it live, over a week or two in different halls, different places. Hopefully, I’d have a good piano every time. I’d record everything, and keep the ‘best of.’”

BREAKING ALL THE RULES

“All my heroes, even the pianists I admire the most, are the ones that broke the rules,” Terrasson tells me. “Herbie Hancock and Ahmad Jamal. Ahmad would say ‘I’m not gonna play s**t for six bars,’ and in those six bars, you just heard everything.”

Other musical influences include Keith Jarrett and Cecil Taylor. “Keith was going wild, extracting sounds out of the instrument that nobody had before. I love so many of his records. His recent double album Radiance — that’s a masterpiece. Also, Facing You is beautiful.

“And it took me years to appreciate Cecil Taylor,” he continues, “until I listened maybe five years ago to Silent Tongues and I was like ‘Wow, this is wild. This is from the gut. I love it.’”

Terrasson’s sense of playfulness and adventure are especially evident in his solo playing, where tempos shift and colors collide. Who are some of the pianists that showed him these kinds of possibilities that solo playing affords? “Thelonious Monk’s Piano Solo,” Terrasson says. “Amazing. I mean boom. That’s church, man. It’s so big. It’s all there. Also, Art Tatum and Duke Ellington. That was some of my first solo listening.” Terrasson also cites pianists Paul Bley and Tete Montoliu as influences who imparted a reckless sense of abandon and personality in their solo work.

MAKE YOUR OWN HISTORY

Terrasson’s musical identity has been forged from the unflinching belief that you can’t recreate the past. You can only be yourself, and follow your own individual voice. “When you’re growing up, you try to learn the vocabulary, and the way to do it, so to speak,” he continues. “I transcribed a bunch of Bill Evans and Bud Powell, and I love those guys. But I knew, even if I wanted to play like that, I couldn’t. Because that was then. The reason they played like that was because they felt in the moment. So I think it’s great to allow the essence of these guys to affect your music, but if you keep copying, you’ll just get very good at copying.”

Mirror showcases Terrasson’s formidable pianistic arsenal, a fierce physical command of the instrument coupled with an expansive harmonic vocabulary. He credits his early classical training with helping to foster his musical freedom. “I’m still thankful to my classical teachers for spending so much time on sound,” he says. “And this had almost nothing to do with music. Playing a note 20 times, continuously hearing ‘No, start over.’ Learning that it’s all about the weight in your arm. And studying some Debussy and Ravel passages, where there’s basically only one or two ways of doing something, and you have to cross hands and use weird fingerings. I like to use those techniques sometimes in my improvisations, changing the notes. I think it’s good to have learned that.”

Repertoire is another area that Terrasson sees as a possible stumbling block in achieving musical independence. “I want to be as free as I can when I’m performing,” he continues. The less baggage you have — if nothing’s in the way, hopefully the inspiration will go straight from your brain into your fingers. That’s really what I’m looking for. Being a medium. And that’s why eventually I’m going to stop, for some time, playing standards. Because that too can get in the way.

“I’d like to be able to sit down at the piano, without any idea of what I’m going to do for 20 minutes, let’s say, and just go. Total improvisation, no chords in mind, no melody. And that’s extremely difficult.”

NO REST FOR THE INSPIRED

In addition to touring solo in support of Mirror, Terrasson will continue to push musical boundaries on a variety of upcoming projects, including a European duo tour with multi-instrumentalist Michel Portal, and the recording of his next, still unnamed record. “The new record will focus on melody, rhythm, and form,” he says. “There are a lot of grooves, and pretty melodies. If I can put it together, it will be just originals. I have 15 new tunes that are ready to be recorded. And I’m convinced that two or three are just begging for lyrics. I’m too afraid to sing myself, but I’m sure with the right words, they would have even more musical weight and emotion.”

Jacky moves from the Steinway to his computer rig, starting a Brazilian-tinged pattern of sampled guitar and drums in his digital audio workstation. He quickly jumps back to the piano, playing along with the pre-recorded track. The piano melody, almost childlike in its construction, floats effortlessly over the sequence. It’s a startling musical mix of yesterday and tomorrow. Beyond categorization, like everything he does.

Terrasson looks forward to experimenting further. He won’t be resting on his past achievements. There’s too much more to do. “What you want to do in your life is learn new things,” he tells me. “I think by hearing these new approaches and sounds, you grow.”

JACKY’S TOOLBOX

Terrasson’s studio merges the best of old and new world technologies — a Steinway Model B seven-foot grand piano is the centerpiece of his music room. “It’s nice,” he says. “I wish I could have a [Steinway nine-foot model] D in here, for the touch — to be used to how it feels when you get one on the road.”

He records his piano through an Apogee DUET portable FireWire interface into Logic Audio on his Apple iMac and assorted laptops. “I like Logic Audio because of the arranging capabilities,” he says. “I use it for MIDI and samples.”