I Beam Piano Marathon

Last week there was a very special event at the Gowanus performance space I Beam, a marathon concert of pianists from the NYC jazz and improvised music community to raise money to repair I Beam's piano. The concert went from 5 to 11pm and there were about 20 pianists performing solo, mostly improvised sets. It was a fascinating experience to see so many approaches to improvisation in a solo piano context. I played a few pieces by Bill Frisell, which I've been working on for an upcoming recording project. The only other pianist who didn't play a free improv set was Akiko Pavolka, who played and sang some of her original songs. Here are some clips: