Time: 60:54
Size: 139.4 MB
Styles: Piano jazz
Year: 2015
Art: Front
[5:12] 1. Norwegian Wood
[4:42] 2. Working Class Hero
[5:56] 3. Just Like Starting Over
[4:36] 4. Because
[7:00] 5. Woman
[4:37] 6. Imagine
[4:38] 7. Help
[5:27] 8. Watching The Wheels
[3:34] 9. Oh My Love
[4:35] 10. In My Life
[5:53] 11. Happy Xmas, War Is Over
[4:38] 12. All You Need Is Love
John Lennon would have been seventy-five on October 9th 2015. On “My Working Class Hero,” the Finnish pianist Iiro Rantala pays tribute to this master of modern song. Rantala has demonstrated a particular gift for making this kind of homage once before. His 2011 album “Lost Heroes” recaptured the spirit of a different musical idol in each of its ten songs, and received the annual prize of the Deutsche Schallplattenkritik and an ECHO jazz award, whilst Germany's foremost broadsheet newspaper the FAZ proclaimed it as having “intelligence, humour, loads of feeling, unpredictable ideas and especially finely crafted piano playing.”
In this John Lennon tribute, Rantala turns to the musician who is perhaps greatest of all of his ‘lost heroes’. “I heard John Lennon before I knew anything about jazz” says Rantala, “’Happy Xmas, War Is Over’ was my first encounter with his music when I sang it in the school choir at a Christmas concert. Even then, it took my breath away. How is it, I wondered, that this guy can write something quite so simple and yet so powerful?” That same combination of simplicity and strength is perhaps also the greatest attribute of Rantala himself. The introduction to “Norwegian Wood” is remarkable for the way in which Rantala builds a chordal pulse which is precise, featherlight, and masterful. He subtly alters the colour and the dynamic with each separate attack of the keys. Even before the theme, with its 4/4 feel, has been fully and truly stated, a waltz has also magically stumbled into being.
In this John Lennon tribute, Rantala turns to the musician who is perhaps greatest of all of his ‘lost heroes’. “I heard John Lennon before I knew anything about jazz” says Rantala, “’Happy Xmas, War Is Over’ was my first encounter with his music when I sang it in the school choir at a Christmas concert. Even then, it took my breath away. How is it, I wondered, that this guy can write something quite so simple and yet so powerful?” That same combination of simplicity and strength is perhaps also the greatest attribute of Rantala himself. The introduction to “Norwegian Wood” is remarkable for the way in which Rantala builds a chordal pulse which is precise, featherlight, and masterful. He subtly alters the colour and the dynamic with each separate attack of the keys. Even before the theme, with its 4/4 feel, has been fully and truly stated, a waltz has also magically stumbled into being.
My Working Class Hero