Solo Piano

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A delightful train ride through colourful jazz landscapes, with many thoughts of the heart: the innovative Swiss pianist Claude Diallo, who spent eleven years soaking up the effervescent New York scene and who likes to roam the world with his ensemble, plays a light-footed, blues-tinged live solo programme here, virtuosic and mischievous, with five original Diallo numbers and seven cover songs ranging from Cole Porter through Boz Scaggs to Keith Jarrett.

Anyone who had the chance to be there at his concert on 12 April 2024 at the museum of modern art in the Weserburg in Bremen will certainly have been swept away, for Diallo puts his own fine, unpretentious stamp on long-established standards such as “Night and Day” and “Take Five”. The soon to be 45-year-old from St. Gallen likes to play around a melody and loves to repeat his favourite notes with a cheeky insistence. Above all, though, it is the groove that gets him every time!

Walking bass, but also kitschy ornaments here and there, unison passages, witty interjections and variations thrown in on purpose: all this and more is the business of this remarkable musician, whose musical tastes are audibly wide-ranging and inspired by his travelling. In this delightful treasure hunt featuring gospel hymns, Japanese clarity and South American rhythms, what remains at the end is simply the sheer, unbridled joy of playing the piano. Magnificent!

Dominik Hartig, Concerto 1|2026, Austria

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With his multi-award-winning formation The Claude Diallo Situation, Claude Diallo has established himself over more than three decades and some 25 albums as a fixture of European jazz. He is a musician who is constantly on the move, who plays, composes and listens, and who inspires his audience just as much as he inspires himself. His idea of “Traveling With Music” is no empty phrase but a way of living. That makes it all the more special to experience him here entirely alone at the piano, in an open, almost private atmosphere.

For me this solo album exerts an enormous pull. With every phrase, with every piece, the tension grows, not through volume or effects but through presence. Diallo’s playing is technically brilliant, virtuosic even, and yet never self-admiring. What captivates me most is his profound melodic instinct and a passion for improvisation that always feels entirely organic. You listen, and you stay hooked, without ever wanting to tune out for even a single moment.

The repertoire combines familiar pieces, by Keith Jarrett or Cole Porter for instance, with his own compositions. And it is precisely here that it becomes clear how naturally Diallo’s music takes its place in that tradition. His own pieces are in no way inferior to the works of the great jazz composers; they feel complete, mature and entirely coherent in themselves.

On Alone Finally, Claude Diallo proves himself an outstanding improviser, a pianist of excellent technique, and an artist with seemingly inexhaustible creative possibilities. That the album was recorded live at the Museum Weserburg during the jazzahead! Clubnight 2024 in Bremen is a further, decisive advantage. For me the music gains depth and authenticity from it: you feel the room, the moment, the music coming into being.

All in all, Alone Finally is for me a magnificent solo album, carried by musicality, experience and inner calm. A concert, a moment, captured in a way that resonates long afterwards.

Jacek Brun, jazz-fun.de, 5 February 2026, Germany