Pop and Jazz in Review

Chris Anderson Pianist Bradley's 70 University Place Greenwich Village Through tonight     

New York Times   By PETER WATROUS   Published: May 1, 1993

It takes a minute or two to understand the pianist Chris Anderson's playing. Mr. Anderson has made a career out of the elliptical. His playing suggests instead of explaining. His phrases curl, then vanish, like cigarette smoke dissipating in a breeze. There's rarely any conventional grace or logic to his improvisations, and to understand them takes some thought. Where most jazz improvising is aimed outward at an audience, Mr. Anderson has developed an inward language, and it's brilliant.

On Monday night, Mr. Anderson, joined by the bassist Ray Drummond and the drummer Billy Higgins, balanced a strong sense of abstraction with a basic be-bop context. He and the band performed standards, including "Green Dolphin Street" and "Joyspring," and as an example of how complex his reharmonizing can become, his introductions often left Mr. Drummond awestruck, scratching his head and wondering what might appear.

Mr. Anderson underscores his personal, almost eccentric way with tunes by using an infinitely malleable touch on the piano. Playing with the piano's pedals, he manipulated his sound, clipping percussive chords short, then letting others bleed sound slowly or explode like water suddenly erupting from an overfull dam. As with pianists like Carl Perkins, Elmo Hope and Thelonious Monk, Mr. Anderson's personal approach suggests the home-grown. The chunky percussiveness of his attack, the care he gives each phrase and the studiousness with which he ignores conventional technique shows him to have an individual concept. Mr. Anderson is an original.  

New York Times