Michael Kocour

Pianist Michael Kocour brings many gifts to this solo piano recording of gems from the Great American Songbook: melodic creativity, harmonic acuity, swinging rhythmic gait, supple technique, an elegant touch, and bell-like tone, ebullient spirit and refined taste. But lording over all these qualities is this meta truth: Kocour is a compelling storyteller whose playing reaches across the footlights, pulling listeners inside the music where magic happens on the fly. Each improvisation here reveals the cohesive scaffolding and clarity of a tightly constructed short story - while the natural flow of Kocour's phrasing contains myriad unexpected details that suggest subtle plot twists. Blink and you'll miss them.

On 'Wherever You Go, There You Are,' pianist and composer Michael Kocour offers a kind of casual mastery and urbane carriage that makes the demanding solo piano idiom sound as natural as breathing. His models are Hank Jones, Tommy Flanagan, Cedar Walton and Barry Harris. Kocour has internalized their values - storytelling, melodic integrity, refined harmony and voice leading, spontaneous orchestration and swing - without sounding like a clone of any of them. Originally from Chicago and a regular sideman with James Moody & Benny Golson, Kocour has been director of jazz studies at Arizona State University for the last decade. (Mark Stryker) '. . . one of the most sophisticated pianists in jazz. ' - Howard Reich, The Chicago Tribune