Spirit – Peter Calandra (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

Based around chilled piano pieces, sometimes spacious and understated and sometimes taken into more intricate arrangements, Spirit, the new album from New York-based composer Peter Calandra, is a gorgeous affair. 13 instrumental songs which see his skills as a crafter of music writ large, he wanders along those liminal spaces between the contemporary smarts of the jazz world and the grace and delicacy of the classical realm.

It is perhaps by looking at the covers that he has included here that we really get to fully appreciate his talents. By comparing the song as we remember it with his masterful reworkings, we can see how far he is able to take a piece and how much he is able to add to that song’s story.

With Layla, The Derek and the Dominoes rock classic, for example, he avoids the bombast and bravado of the main piece and instead embraces the spirit of the less often heard long playout. This, he uses this as the basis of his new interpretation, slowly moving from his own creative executions to that of what would have been, for many, the b-side of the original single. Similarly, he takes one of The Band’s best-known numbers, The Weight, and simply explores a more plaintive and purposeful path through it, unencumbered by lyrical…err….weight.

And having seen such creativity at work, you are now ready to go back and re-listen to the ten original songs found here; only then can you experience and appreciate every decision he has made in these compositions and arrangements, every space and pause, every flourish and sonic motif.