Jake Hart - Collage (2024) [Hi-Res]

In contemporary music, the divide between composition and improvisation has become blurry over the generations. Twentieth and twenty-first century composers have stretched the boundaries of melodic and harmonic structure, leading to pieces that challenge listeners and performers alike.

Hoping to work along these lines, pianist and composer Jake Hart immersed himself in the worlds of jazz and contemporary music. For his debut recording, Collage, Hart has woven together musical ideas from contemporary classical music into a through-composed piece that sounds like an improvised piece of music.

It was during his formative studies on piano that Hart discovered his love of solo playing. He knew that when he recorded his first album it would be solo piano. Though he started playing solo piano in the jazz vein while a teenager, Hart’s study of modern composition led him to incorporate the sounds of 20th and 21st century composers into his improvisations.

By the time he finished his degrees, Hart had discovered a new method of composing that suited his particular style. Hart’s long study and absorption of an encyclopedic list of composers, including those as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg, Toru Takemitsu, and Morton Feldman, gave him access to myriads of musical ideas that he began to incorporate into his composing process. These internalized ideas were then arranged and memorized to form a through composed piece without notating.

The effect of the performance is to sound like a long solo piano improvisation that sounds as contemporary as any improvising artist. The resulting composition, Collage, is a nearly hour long piece that is a cornucopia of musical ideas expertly arranged into an intriguing performance. Having begun the composing process in 2021, Hart has internalized Collage, a piece that has solidified his unique style and voice.

The creation of Collage has led to Hart’s decision to create a collection of twelve collage pieces, which will utilize the same concept of creative borrowing from composers but will engage with a wider variety and from farther back in the music’s development.

On his debut album, Collage, Jake Hart has composed an intriguing and singular piece of music for solo piano, one that breaks the boundaries of classical and jazz form in its own kaleidoscopic musical universe.