Bill Anschell - Improbable Solutions (2024) [Official Digital Download]

Most fans of Seattle-based pianist Bill Anschell will not see this one coming. His comfort zone on his own recordings has been as a mainstream acoustic jazz artist, on albums like Shifting Standards (2018), a piano trio affair, Rumbler (2017) and Figments (2011), a solo piano outing. All of these were released on Origin Records.

Anschell, who formerly worked as vocalist Nnenna Freelon's musical director, crafts his recordings with a high polish and does not generally rock the boat on his "mainstream artist" status. Improbable Solutions changes that. A veteran of thirty-plus years in the music business, the pianist can record an album in a half day's studio time. This one, he says, took more than three and a half years. The difference? Electronics.

Improbable Solutions began as one of the increasingly ubiquitous Covid projects. Anschell initially recorded the music himself, on the keyboard, with drums and bass electronically added. A two-day studio session ensued, with Chris Symer and Jose Martinez replacing the leader's electro bass and drum parts with an acoustic take on what Anschell had blueprinted for them, much for the better, according to Anschell, who also replaced some of his keyboard parts with acoustic piano.

That was the foundation. Then Anschell mixed the project, tweaking and spicing and embellishing and adjusting, and inviting in guest artists Brian Monroney to add some guitar parts, Jeff Busch to pump in some percussion and KJ Sawaka to add his drum magic on "Outburst," the disc's closer.

TRACKLIST

1 Ambulator
2 Nimbus
3 Gentle Persuasion
4 Naked Truth
5 Is This Thing Even On?
6 Hidden Nobility
7 The Following Week
8 Abandoned
9 Outburst (feat. KJ Sawka)



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