Not many classical pianists maintain blogs where they ruminate on everything from eating a terrible bowl of meatballs while on tour with Joshua Bell to seeing Twilight: New Moon (twice) and hearing strains of a Schubert song.

But then, not many classical pianists are Jeremy Denk.On today’s Fresh Air, Denk talks about playing Beethoven and Ligeti, who “took the piano to places it had never been before, and makes demands of the pianist and the mind that had never been made before.”

Tomorrow:pianist Jeremy Denk

It’s raining here in Philadelphia. Chucho Valdes is cheering me up.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead says the latest duo recording from Francois Houle and Benoit Delbecq is like a slow-motion sleepwalk.

Kevin Whitehead takes a listen to a newly released album of Thelonious Monk solo tunes, called Thelonious Alone in San Francisco.

[Portrait of Thelonious Monk, Minton’s Playhouse, New York, N.Y., ca. Sept. 1947] (LOC) (by The Library of Congress)

tballardbrown:

‘Pianomania’ Takes Persnickety Pianists To A New Pinnacle : Deceptive Cadence : NPR

Very few pianists travel with their own instruments, so they’re generally at the mercy of whichever piano resides in a given concert hall. Each pianist is in search of a perfect sound, and it’s fascinating to see how they go about chasing it. 

Kevin Whitehead reviews Craig Taborn’s new solo album, Avenging Angel:  Taborn says he’s less about transcending the piano’s limitations than exploring what’s possible within it — treating the contraption as a “pure sound source.”

Jazz Pianist George Shearing, on writing the standard “Lullaby of Birdland” — “I wrote it in 10 minutes — I always say 10 minutes and 35 years in the business — over a steak in my dining room when I lived in New Jersey. I went back to that same butcher a thousand times trying to get that same steak again.” Excerpts from a 1986 interview with Shearing, who died yesterday at the age of 91.

Super-size Me: Most pianos have 88 keys. And most great piano music comes from the middle of the keyboard — only rarely do the player’s fingers venture onto the tinkly keys at the top of the keyboard, or the booming bass notes at the bottom. But a craftsman in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, thinks the instrument has room to grow; and he wants to nudge the piano out of complacent middle age. He has designed a grand with an unprecedented 102 keys.