Chris Anderson brings his rich musical background to this unhurried, intimate recording, where the boundaries of time seem to melt away. He plays his personal amalgam of sophistication and blues idiom on such standards as Polka Dots and Moonbeams, Good Morning Heartache, and When Sonny Gets Blue. On Duke Ellington's Solitude , the song that gave Chris the feeling tone for this CD, he expresses a quiet meditation, a man haunted by a woman who is no longer there. He begins with a simple rendering of the melody, as though he discovers it for the first time. In using single notes that float around in space without a beat, volumes of silence are enlisted on either side of them, invoking powerful emotions. He adds harmonic layers, almost reluctantly, and only when it appears the song cries out for them. After several choruses of rich invention, he ends the song, again, with single notes. Perhaps the song continues on in the pianist's mind after the last recorded notes. Did we dream the song? One might ask the same question with the other Ellington tune on this CD, Daydream. Chris's ethereal images are not unlike the sand paintings of the Aboriginal people of Australia, who, by applying earth pigments in sand, create beautiful images, only to efface them at the end of the day, leaving no trace that anything was created, except for what remains in one's memory. [CD Details]