Michel Reis Short Stories

Sometimes music is abstract. Sometimes it is purely an invitation to dance. Sometimes it exists to protest against a wrong. And sometimes it exists simply to tell us a story. Short Stories is the magnificent new solo album from Luxembourg-born pianist Michel Reis, a set of fourteen delicately spun narratives, each with its own colour, setting and direction, each as compelling as the last. Adjectives like cinematic routinely attach themselves to jazz impressionism. Reis, though, takes a subtler and more nuanced approach, creating works that combine simplicity with an air of mystery and suspense. Reis has released trio music on CAM JAZZ already, but this is a chance to hear him in a no less typical setting, in quiet and thoughtful communication with a beautiful piano. His style, influenced by classical music, but still very much in the modern jazz idiom, is open, alert and responsive, respectful to the example of his teachers but now, after ten albums, confidently moving in its own direction. Settle down and let him tell you a story.