Chronogram review of Live from the Center

Deep Listening Gallery’s adventurous Thursday night jazz and

improvisation concerts are organized by the brilliant pianist David Arner.

Despite scant pay, there’s a parade of prime musical talent from all over the U.S. of A.

The attraction is the high standard set by Arner’s own musicianship and integrity,

and the small but dedicated audience attracted by the same.

Evenings when Arner puts his hand to the keyboard are a special delight.

I had the good fortune to attend Arner’s 2003 solo performance at the Center for Performing Arts in Rhinebeck that’s the source material for this new disc.  “Cosmos II,” its 26-minute centerpiece, stretches the piano’s sonic possibilities via mallets and plucking of the harp, gentle use of the piano case for percussion, and careful planning of overtones captured by close miking, but minus the usual New Music extreme effects of smashing keyboards with elbows and placing objects on piano strings.

Everything is open to question via mercurial shifts of tempo, tonality or lack thereof, lyricism versus dissonance, loud and soft, and timbres of a hundred shapes.  It takes a virtuoso of the heart and mind, as well as of the hands, to make this questioning succeed.  And succeed Arner does.

Philip Ehrenshaft, Chronogram (Mid-Hudson Valley), December 2005