Solo

She's quietly been working on form and conceptual matters in the spirit of devoted explorers like Chick Corea and Richie Beirach. -Ben Ratliff, New York Times Expect jazz in it's more multi-limbed, open-ended definition. - Josef Woodard, Santa Barbara Independent Thirteenth Note Records is pleased to announce the release of pianist Roberta Piket's eighth CD and her first solo piano recording. I get restless easily and I'm always looking for new challenges, Roberta reflects about her decision to record, at this point in her career, a full-length solo album. A versatile musician, she's played both straight-ahead jazz and free music. Her most recent CD, Sides, Colors, explored the pastel shades and supple textures of an ensemble enhanced with strings and woodwinds. Love and Beauty, from 2006, presented her advanced concept of the modern jazz piano trio. And on her 2003 release, I'm Back in Therapy and It's All Your Fault, she experimented with electric instruments and groove-oriented pieces. So, for Roberta, a solo CD represents a new musical challenge, another fresh area of exploration, and the next step forward in her continuing growth as an artist. This is the first time I've done a recording of almost all standards, she continues. I felt that for my first solo recording I wanted to start with material as fundamental and malleable as the standard repertoire, a common reference point that I am very comfortable with. Grounded in both the modern jazz tradition and the works of the contemporary classical composers she admires, Roberta combines an infectious swing with an adventurous harmonic sense. Her playing, characterized by both a strong sense of direction and a striving for new territory, is at times melodic and pensive, at other times angular and dissonant. Roberta has played professionally as a sidewoman with David Liebman, Rufus Reid, Michael Formanek, Lionel Hampton, Mickey Roker, Harvey Wainapel, Eliot Zigmund, Benny Golson and the BMI/NY Jazz Orchestra and has thrice been a featured guest on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz, on National Public Radio. She has also performed with some of the most interesting musicians in European and American creative music, including drummers Klaus Kugel and Billy Mintz, and saxophonists Petras Vysniauskas and Roby Glod and Louie Belogenis. A gifted composer as well, Roberta was a finalist in the Thelonious Monk BMI Composers' Competition.