Stephen Grew

Intense but somehow classical, raw, and explosive. – BESTOFJAZZ https://bestofjazz.org/piano-solo-2025/

The beauty found within the three improvisations of pianist Stephen Grew’ s Fire feels submerged, discoverable by those willing to open its treasure box of abstractions, blues, and modern classical idioms, a box that weaves patterns every bit as free of representation as Pollock’s wild action paintings of the mid-20 th century. The well-crafted amalgamations emphasize Grew’s adept use of the pedal, which he relies on to craft his stream of consciousness– that and the occasional tweak inside the piano – like a dab of honey added to sweeten a strong tea.

“Fire 3” is the highlight of the three improvs. Here the music races along until it hits a sudden slowing of velocity – not a full stop – but a place where the mood changes to a more hallucinatory atmosphere, one more in than out. There is the feeling that though the music is abstract, a reserved dark and lingering intimacy resides within its phrases. To provide a literary metaphor, think of the incurable Morgul-knife wound Frodo suffers in “Lord of the Rings.” Even so, Grew can hop about with the best of them – creating stirring rhythmic impulses that faintly recall Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring,” as well as flourishes that lead to complex and almost overwhelming tonal clusters.

On “Fire 1,” after an abstract opening, Grew’s fingerings fashion a dance. Even as the action reaches car-chase velocity, Grew refrains from pouncing or gliding on the keys. Instead, he uses precise touches and the piano pedal to create his movements and sonics. In one passage, his left hand creates a rotating motif while his right hand dances lightly at the top of the key. This process reverses soon thereafter, with the left hand creating lower register splashes while the right hand creates a rotating motif at the top of the keys. These kinds of inverse pivots keep the piece unsettled and restless like a pinball propelled back and forth. And for those wishing for fireworks, the opening of “Fire 2” fits the bill. Here the notes light up under Grew’s chaotic attack. As the improv continues, the voicings he employs are never timid. Rather, they have the feeling of assurance not unlike a trapeze artist leaving a swing to do a flip mid-air knowing that upon completion another swing will arrive just in time.

There is much to enjoy in these fascinating conversations – for that is what this album is – a discussion between Grew and his listeners. What this dialogue entails is something only a personal journey into these improvisations can reveal. Enjoy. – Don Phipps, THE FREE JAZZ COLLECTIVE https://www.freejazzblog.org/2025/12/stephen-grew-fire-discus-music-2025.html 

In the last few years I’ve moved home a number of times. I like Stephen Grew’s music a lot, his original solo cd Lit & Phil Suite, recorded in 1066, plus all subsequent albums, have managed to survive my changes of locations. Now I’m not expecting further house moves. Stephen Grew’s music though retains its momentum; a continuous improvisation, like life itself. And here’s another thing. You’d think that one creative musician sitting down at a decent concert piano, tuned and imbibed with hundreds of previous performances, is a fairly straight forward process. Not a bit of it. The album sleeve gives ‘geek’ recording detail – a comparison between ‘omnidirectional capsules’ and ‘small diaphragm condenser mics’ – gee I’d have been climbing the walls! Nevertheless, I can report, the evidence is here: Stephen’s music is up and running. Fire alights in a single element. It’s potentially dangerous; listen to the three extended extemporisations. There’s a plethora of concentrated staccato sparks that add up to far more than a display of fireworks. Deep instant sonatas are revealed, whole compositional playing, totally beyond the norm of expectation. Let’s have a word about movement. Mr Grew’s music is full of fast fingers. In the cover photograph he has one hand in his pocket. Protection? Maybe. On the disk there are two twin hands in almost constant articulation. In truth, there’s no end to this recital. Sure we get an extraordinary 50 minutes… it could go on for days, weeks, years. It probably does in the mind of Stephen Grew. There’s an exchange of habitation running marathons between sound and movement. Too fast to chant, too articulate for speech. Combustible. How long has this been going on? Seemingly forever. Stay the course, this album is on the loop. Magnificent. – Steve Day, March 2025 www.wyldepublications.com

I’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of this album for some time now. Pianist Stephen Grew is, in my opinion, one of the most extraordinary improvisers active at the moment. He is a genuine “voice” – no other pianist sounds like this – and his improvisations have a single minded sense of purpose and a clarity of vision that is truly remarkable. The opening gestures of the first piece on his new Discus Music release are wonderful. Like a master film editor he alternates between glimpses of vast sonic vistas and sudden moments of intense close up focus on tiny details. It took my breath away on my first listen through. The range and quickness of his musical thought is something to behold. Passages of ever evolving “not quite” ostinati can seamlessly and suddenly shift to tender lyricism without any sense of a musical handbrake turn. One thing that strikes me, and this is remarkable in the context of free improvisation, is how rarely I feel a sense of the pianist searching – it feels so decisive and inevitable, he knows just what his next move should be. Again I’m put in mind of a master film editor, but this is happening in real time. To describe the music as pianistic would be an understatement. Stephen’s own notes to the album talk in detail about the instrument he recorded this music on, as well as the room it is in. He’s not just playing the piano, he is playing this piano in this space. He seems to wring every possible colour and nuance from the instrument and yet the whole is such a coherent artistic statement. It is staggering , glorious music making. I remain mystified that Stephen Grew is not more widely known and revered. We owe a big debt to Martin Archer for continuing to support this unique artist. Music to treasure! – Martin Pyne, Bandcamp UK Jazz & Improvised Music

Improvising musician Stephen Grew has been playing piano and keyboards for four decades. Over that time, he has evolved his own distinctive, atonal style of playing. He has worked – and still works – with many musicians from the free improvisation scene, but has focused particularly in the last ten years on solo playing. As he says, ‘my solo piano music … is made using large musical shapes, these shapes inhabit a longer time frame than the shorter phrases and musical gestures ordinarily associated with Free Improvisation.’ – Discus Music have released three albums of Grew’s solo work, of which this, Fire, is the latest. On it, he plays the Lancaster University Steinway D piano. In the notes that go with it, he extols the virtues of the instrument, with good reason. It has a deep, resonant bass, and a clarity of tone in the high register that really brings out the detail in Grew’s more complex passages. The music itself has a mercurial quality and an understated lyricism. The fact that it’s improvised immediately puts one in mind of jazz (especially in the faster passages), but it’s more helpful, I think, to listen to it – as far as possible – free of any association with a particular genre. Listening to it alongside conventionally-notated 20th century classical atonal piano music, I was immediately struck by the fluidity of Grew’s playing and how the demands of musical notation can restrict the ways we make music. Growing up in a musical tradition that tends to revolve around the conversion of dots on a page into sound – and, if not that, the creation of structures that mimic written music – it’s easy to forget that improvisation is music’s natural state. And that, in a way, is one way of describing what Grew makes: music in it’s natural state. It merely demands that we listen. – Dominic Rivron, INTERNATIONAL TIMES https://internationaltimes.it/improvisations-and-conversations/

What can be said about a near-hour long solo piano piece that is purely improvised on the spot and mostly eschews all genre boundaries? It could be split into three shorter tracks “Fire 1,” “Fire 2,” and “Fire 3,” which is exactly what was done here, though it doesn’t really change Grew’s piece over the long haul, which seems to drift in and out of conscious meandering and dreamy shadows as it twists and turns from one idea to the next. Grew is a master at this, although he’d done a lot more than solo improvisations over his thirty-plus year career, having played in various formations with Trevor Watts, Graham Clark, Keith Tippett, Richard Scott, Evan Parker, and many others, in duos, trios, quartets. The full-length piece of 55-plus minutes has some pauses in it, or breathers — which is where the shorter pieces are cut, but make no mistake, this is all one performance recorded live on a Steinway D grand piano at Lancaster Baptist Church, same as Grew’s previous CD, Now We Are Here, reviewed in these pages in September of last year. The ideas come fast, swelling and retreating and falling away with little regard for structural limitations, although one can simply kick back with headphones on and it all tends to make sense as it progresses along its guided path, Grew’s mastery of this instrument is holding everything together, where his notes coalesce and commingle like perfect colours and scatter like stars in the night sky. – Peter Thelen, EXPOSÉ http://expose.org/index.php/articles/display/stephen-grew-fire-3.html

A further demonstration of his versatile, sovereign art of playing. If this is not enough, Grew offers another alternative with its intoxicating, effervescent triptych, which always amazes with nancarrowesque speed, beaded clusters or rattled strings, which combines modernistically crystalline and highly dramatic brain fare with thrills and digging with fireworks. – Rigobert Dittmann, BAD ALCHEMY

Three improvisational pieces of seventeen, thirteen, and twenty-five minutes respectively (‘Fire 1’, ‘Fire 2’, ‘Fire 3’) played on a Steinway D. Crystal-clear notes follow dark atmospheric settings. By alternating a feather-light touch with more percussive punctuations, Grew creates a remarkable depth of field in his performance. – Georges Tonla Briquet, JAZZHALO https://www.jazzhalo.be/reviews/cdlpk7-reviews/various/driemaal-piano-solo-ii/

Recorded on a Steinway D Grand Piano at the Lancaster University Arts department, here we find Stephen Grew performing three fully improvised pieces (17:18, 13:22 and 22:46 long respectively) relying solely on his skill as a pianist to ensure the music is fluid and makes sense. Within the digipak there are some notes from Stephen about his relationship with the instrument, as well as Chris Jones on the decisions on microphones and their exact placement, and why, which I also found fascinating. I have not previously come across Stephen, but he has recorded another five albums for Discus Music, and I can see I am going to have to investigate further as this is a release of considerable depth, spontaneity and style. The piano is an amazing instrument, with endless possibilities from single staccato notes to chords and sustain, and here Stephen demonstrates he is a true master as we are provided with pieces which sound as if they have been scored and rehearsed as opposed to being composed live in the moment, full of drama and passion as we get softer and quieter moments in comparison to the storm of sound he also invokes, and while space is an important aspect at some points we are swept away on a tide of music at others. Stephen is living in the moment, being a vessel for the musical spirit to work through him as he moves around the keyboard, rippling here and being bombastic there, rarely allowing himself to take stock before moving into the next melodic (or atonal) section. This is not something which will ever find mass appeal, but for me it is a delight, and something which lovers of modern classical music would do well to discover. Rating: 8/10 – Kev Rowland, HOUSE OF PROG https://houseofprog.com/stephen-grew-fire-2025/