Smilin’ Eyes

(solo piano)

Smilin’ Eyes is the first solo piano album recorded by Stefan Karlsson. A solo performance, it is for a pianist like his footprints. Karlsson’s soul and strength are shown here with no interference or protection of a group. Not many jazz pianists have the ability of maintaining the interest and intensity over an hour of a solo piano performance. Stefan Karlsson not only achieves that, but creates a warm atmosphere along the album, showing a wide palette of resources and colors.

He uses the standard repertoire as a tool to express his personal voice. We can always feel the roots of the jazz idiom in his music. Long lyrical melody lines combined with the bebop phrasing (I Thought About You), the modal improvising (It Could Happen to You), the inventive voicings and fresh re-harmonizations (Darn that Dream), the deftly executed gradations of touch on the keyboard (My One and Only Love), the winks to the Classical literature (All The Things you Are), combined all togeth- er with an amazing imagination on the treatment of the form. The album includes also two original songs: the beautiful opening track “Trikings”, and “Smilin’ Eyes”, featured in the European Real Book edited by Sher Music Co. Smilin’ Eyes is a masterpiece that consolidates Stefan Karlsson as one of the strongest pianist of the international jazz scene.