Stephen Grew

To my ears, Stephen Grew is unique to himself. I’ve been listening to his music since 1066 and I keep his recordings on my shelves because I enjoy listening to them. Most of Mr Grew’s albums are solo piano and the latest is no different in that sense. Only in that sense.

Recently Stephen spent three nights at my place. I’ve a reasonable sounding upright piano in the corner of the main room. He didn’t even open the lid. Why? Because he wanted to ‘save himself’ for the two performances he was due to be playing over that three day period in Devon. Even when we got to the venue, apart from a brief familiarisation with the concert grand he’d encountered the previous year, he didn’t wish to ‘practice’. The ‘practice’ moves daily within his head.

When it came to the get-go, he did the two performances. The first night with myself and the bassist Marcus Vergette, the second night, solo. On both occasions Stephen spread himself through that instrument as if sound and presence were one and the same thing, his extraordinary concentration producing two stunning recitals. This behaviour pattern impressed me. His internal understanding and trust in his own creativity – the ‘holding back’ in order to ‘come forth’ – was something akin to deep meditation.

Stephen was good company; we had meals together, talked war and peace, Tippett and Taylor, trees and sea, Bach and Haydn, north and south, family and friends. Throughout the whole period, there in the background, rarely referred to, were the two concerts. They waited their turn and were then encountered. Stephen Grew knew them, despite not knowing what eruption of notes would be actually played. Even the trio gig, the three way exploration, he was at ease with its presumed beauty, so is the way of these things. Stephen Grew is the complete pianist.

This year’s album, Pianoply, comes in three distinct instant parts. Like the concerts, the recording was completed in a few hours. Mr Grew does not require multiple days in the studio because although it is spontaneous composition, the warp and weft of intention lives at peace in his hands and head.

There’s no sense of hurry in this music. No abandonment to abstraction nor going over old ground. Pianoply is new music, recognisably ‘Grew’ if you know his technic, truly, dangerously, a current currency of discovery.

When I was with him he asked me if I’d heard about the death of the drummer, Tony Bianco; his old buddy clearly on his mind. The final track on this album is dedicated to Tony… Inner Piece. And although on occasions the fingers fall fast down towards the vast internal manipulation of the piano’s harp, there’s also a continual pausing, possibly feeling the weight of space in the breath. Gee, Tony, pity you never heard this elegy marking you.

All Stephen Grew’s recordings for the Discus Label have been satisfyingly special. I’d recommend them all. Yesterday I went back to Now We Are Here and Fire, I wouldn’t want to be without them but I’m going to come clean, Pianoply is something else again. This is where one guy’s sense of ‘being’ is given kindness of grace. The pianist is pared back to a brilliant naive honesty, Play What You Feel, Feel What You Play is how Stephen describes it. What my ears receive is exceptional music cast within a creative focus that knows no bounds to belonging. Incredible, what an album! – Steve Day, March 2026

Pianoply is the fourth solo album pianist Stephen Grew has made for Discus Music. Grew has been touring as an improvising musician since 1996 and has worked with many other musicians active in the improvised music scene, including Evan Parker, Keith Tippett, Graham Clark, Pat Thomas and Howard Riley. For the past decade, though, he’s been concentrating on solo playing, creating ‘large[r] musical shapes, … [that] inhabit a longer time frame than the shorter phrases and musical gestures ordinarily associated with free improvisation.’

In the notes to the album, Grew, characteristically, focusses on the piano he’s playing and the surroundings he’s working in (as he says: ‘I enjoyed being in the middle of the countryside, surrounded by trees’. Those trees again). This, paradoxically, tells us a lot about his work: it directs us towards a realisation that there is very little to say, as the music speaks for itself and, as Wittgenstein famously put it, ‘whereof one cannot speak, of that one must remain silent’. Better to talk about the trees, the studio, the piano itself. What he creates comes over as very much absolute music: it seems to – and probably does – exist in a world of its own. I know this could be said of a lot of music, but one is very much aware of it when listening to Grew. And he’s right about the larger musical shapes. This is music that embraces both thoughtful atonal ruminations and energetic passages of high velocity that always retain a sense of direction. The need to create structures that develop seems to be encoded in his creative DNA. That’s not to say that the music is unemotional – indeed, the title of the first track is ‘Play what you feel, feel what you play’ – only that, as well as the emotional energy that he puts into the music, one is aware of a structural mind forever shaping it into the language of his almost hermetically sealed, atonal musical world. The results are captivating and addictive. – Dominic Rivron, INTERNATIONAL TIMES https://internationaltimes.it/its-all-about-the-trees/

My love for the work of pianist Stephen Grew is no secret. I think he is a special , unique voice in improvised music, and that he deserves far wider recognition. This is the fourth of a series of solo piano releases he has recorded for Discus Music, and it’s great that the label have done so much to give this music a platform. Kudos as well to Tony Dudley-Evans for helping to finance this. This is another glorious album. Stephen’s sonic palette is huge, he draws so much colour and texture out of the piano, and he conjures a truly panoramic range of mood and emotion in his improvisations. He can turn on a sixpence, the music suddenly changing utterly , so that different soundworlds, and thereby different feelings seem to exist at the same moment, which to me makes this music intensely human. As I listen to the first of the three pieces right now I’m struck by how the music can be simultaneously tremendously active, full of momentum and detail, and yet deeply meditative. Stephen has such a personal vocabulary on the piano, this work is utterly pianistic, while being unlike any other pianist. The final track on the album, Inner Piece, is dedicated to the late master drummer Tony Bianco. It’s a beautiful tribute, and this is another beautiful album of solo piano from Stephen Grew. – Martin Pyne, Bandcamp UK Jazz & Improvised Music

A keyboard wizard of intoxicating richness, beyond jazz, beyond romance. Maximalist like Lubomyr Melnyk, like Pat Thomas, yet in his own way, drawing on his expertise with Grutronic, the Grew Quartet, in duos with Bianco, or Trevor Watts, a whirlwind between poetry and wild, turbulent energy. Simultaneously thoughtful and mercurial, soulful and energetic, playing from the very depths of his being. to draw what not only sweeps him away as “Pure Flow” and a centipede dance. – Rigobert Dittmann, BAD ALCHEMY

It features crystal-clear music, a well-struck keyboard, the work of a virtuoso. One can feel the pleasure of letting one’s fingers glide across the keys like summer raindrops falling on a terrace… – Guy Stuckens, RADIO AIR LIBRE

British pianist Stephen Grew clearly feels at his best alone on a stage or in the studio. After all, this is his fourth solo CD in four years. And he continues to captivate with three tracks this time, varying in length between fifteen and twenty-three minutes. Fitting titles accompany them (‘Play what you feel, feel what you play’, ‘Run Like Hell’, ‘Inner Piece (for Tony Bianco)’). He strings together accelerations and decelerations at a brisk pace. In between, he interrupts these sharp improvisations with sudden silences or somewhat more cautious playful touches that are subsequently magnified. Three pieces, two tea breaks, and a single take; that is all he needed to record these sixty minutes. A powerful statement. – Georges Tonla Briquet, JAZZ HALO https://www.jazzhalo.be/reviews/cdlpk7-reviews/various/discus-special-207208209/ 

British pianist Stephen Grew is releasing a solo album for the fourth consecutive year on the acclaimed Discus Music label, *Pianoply*. The previous ones were titled *Chasm* (2023), *Now We Are Here* (2024), and *Fire* (2025). Regarding *Fire*, I wrote the following in 2025: ‘For those who can muster the necessary willingness to listen, the music on this album is never boring for a single second. Grew manipulates every note so perfectly that it seems as if he is discovering them on the spot. He engages in instant composing: composing while playing.’ What applies to *Fire* also applies to *Pianoply*. Once again, Grew presents three improvisations of 23, 19, and 15 minutes respectively. He recorded them over the course of a few hours, with a tea break between each track, as you can read on Bandcamp. Grew has been practicing avant-garde jazz and free, improvised music for forty years, both solo and in various ensembles. He has played with prominent British improvisers such as Evan Parker, Keith Tippett, and Trevor Watts. You should not expect traditional harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic structures from him, nor clichés or other well-trodden paths. Grew guarantees dynamic extremes, percussive effects, and spontaneous atonal flashes. The first improvisation, ‘Play What You Feel, Feel What You Play’, is nothing less than a declaration of principles. It begins almost sweetly, even pastorally, but soon enters more turbulent waters, with fast runs, swirling passages, and clusters of notes—one long stream of consciousness, essentially. Free jazz is not the right name for the music Grew plays. For that, his playing is too heavily rooted in the idiom of contemporary classical music. He seems to have no shortage of ideas: the music gushes from his instrument as if it were a self-playing piano. ‘Run Like Hell’, the second improvisation, begins abstractly in the high register and consistently maintains that line, although you can hear some lyricism shining through here and there. ‘Inner Piece (for Tony Bianco)’, finally, is, as the title suggests, much quieter and more sedate in nature. Perhaps the tea breaks between recordings have something to do with that… In any case, with Pianoply, Stephen Grew has once again delivered a more than excellent album. I wonder what cultural venues like Bozar and Flagey are waiting for to program the man. He is certainly ready for it! – Patrick Auweleart, JAZZ AND MO https://www.jazzandmo.be/pianoply 

Following the albums CHASM (2023), NOW WE ARE HERE (2024), and FIRE (2025), PIANOPLY is the fourth solo album from improvisational pianist Stephen Grew, recorded on his Yamaha piano, showcasing his prodigious technical mastery and boundless poetic imagination. The exceptional recording quality allows us to fully appreciate this unique expression of a distinct free-jazz style. He plays with masterful skill from the very first piece, “Play What You Feel, Feel What You Play” (22:56). Immediately, one notices a certain expressive diversity through ceaseless movement across the keys, reflecting a highly personal interpretation of this essential element for pianists. Moderate tempos and constant fluidity cultivate a love for his beautiful, silky tone. In this particular approach, it’s a triumph. He imbues his dense and passionate composition with effortless precision. Stephen Grew, or creative freedom, clearly invested himself in his recital with evident sincerity. One admires his fervor, his verve, and the tenderness whispered by his long, dexterous fingers on the white and black keys, in the emotion and tremors that elevate his discourse and his playing with exquisite finesse. Run Like Hell 18:40 unfolds with seriousness and measured style, serving his ardent confession. A fresco always brimming with savory testimonies of his art, made of simplicity and grace intertwined. He transforms his piano into a large, sensitive watercolor, modest and with a momentum that beautifully highlights all the perpetual subtleties of the changing sounds of a demanding text. Variations in the detailed rendering of notes in a dreamy atmosphere full of surprises. Charm, ease of execution, brilliance, optimism are the virtues of this piece over its many bars. Precise phrasing, delivered with impeccable pianistic technique.

Inner Piece (For Tony Bianco) 15:14, a piece in vibrant tribute to his friend Tony Bianco, the great American jazz drummer who passed away on September 14, 2025. Always of exemplary quality, a model of communicative poetry and warmth. Always played with his own masterful artistry, from the very first notes one feels the incredible power of his touch and his chivalrous sentiments, so eloquent in their flamboyant yet humble breath towards his great friend, in the way he strikes the notes. He takes the opportunity to build, on one section of his composition, an immense, anguished procession that culminates throughout, reaching a meditative depth where grief refuses to leave, even as the notes seize it. A beautiful presence! Much brilliance, velvety rhythms to avoid succumbing to sorrow, much melancholic allure in rebellious, improvised passages brimming with life. PIANOPLY, a meticulously crafted, distinguished album, a flowery collection of virtuosity, luminosity, and solemnity in its moving interpretation. – Marie MESMER, HIGHLANDS MAGAZINE

Two years ago, we introduced you to *Now We Are Here*, Stephen Grew’s second solo album—comprising three long and three short pieces, all variations on a single improvisation, performed on a Kawai 2A piano and captured live at the Lancaster Baptist Church. Last year, he released *Fire*, recorded at Lancaster University on a Steinway D. This new album, recorded in a studio, sees him performing on a Yamaha. Regardless of the piano model or the venue, Stephen Grew always takes the same pleasure in playing—and he conveys that beautifully to us. *Pianoply* was recorded in just a few hours; the three long tracks (23, 19, and 15 minutes) were interrupted only for two tea breaks. Like his previous albums, this Lancashire-based pianist relied on improvisation. It is tempting to see the title as a play on the French word *panoplie*—etymologically referring to a full suit of armor. Grew’s “weapons” lie in the intense, spirited phrasing that underpins his compositions. His playing is at once abstract—not immediately easy to grasp in its entirety—and yet deeply lyrical and clear. “Music to treasure!” declares Bandcamp—a fitting description. Grew reinforces the impression that he is just as comfortable interpreting the work of major piano figures (Keith Tippett, Terry Riley) as he is exploring his own musical language. – Eric Therer, JAZZMANIA https://jazzmania.be/stephen-grew-pianoply/ 

There is no doubt that Discus Music are becoming one of my very favourite labels, and I am pleased to again be listening to Stephen Grew given how much I enjoyed his last album, ‘Fire’. This time he was recording in a studio, and the result are three lengthy improvised piano pieces – apparently the session was only broken for two tea breaks, very British indeed! Three pieces which in total are just under an hour in length, all composed live in the moment by Stephen, going wherever he felt the music was taking him, which at times is gentle and relaxing and at others is dynamic and racing, so much so that it is difficult to comprehend just how quickly he is processing what he is hearing and where to take the music next. At times it is a gentle meandering brook while at others we are in the rapids or crashing over the edge like a waterfall, but like those droplets of water it is always connected and everything makes sense at the time.

The only way to listen to this is on headphones, and only when one is able to devote oneself to what is happening between the ears, as this is music which does not allow for any interferences whatsoever but really is a force of nature. Stephen says in the text that the Yamaha had an easy mechanism and an unusually bright tone, and he certainly revelled in getting the most out of it. He is a remarkable musician and yet again I find myself in thrall of what I was listening to and if you enjoy the piano being played by a true master who combines modern classical, jazz and avant garde, then this is very much for you. – Kev Rowland, HOUSE OF PROG https://houseofprog.com/stephen-grew-pianoply-2026/