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NEW YORK - When Leo Tardin steps behind the keyboards and becomes Grand Pianoramax, he moves like a subterranean silhouette, reminiscent of a familiar, unassuming young man with a trim haircut and dark-rimmed glasses who discretely dons a superman outfit. He is an agile crusader, permanently on the run: out to save Metropolis with a super hero dose of nocturnal music.
On his 2005 debut, Tardin was backed up on drums by live drum'n'bass pioneer Jojo Mayer as his sidekick. With his sophomore album "The Biggest Piano In Town" he enlists two new heavy hitters. Syncopating in staggered rhythm are the prodigious drum masters: Deantoni Parks (Kudu, The Mars Volta, Me’Shell Ndegeocello) and Adam Deitch (Talib Kweli, John Scofield). Alternating each of these two drummers, the keyboard/drums duo that is Grand Pianoramax strips the music down to its most essential form. With every note, the clichés of electronica and jazz fall away, saving listeners from their musical diet of mainstream junk food.
This second group effort also introduces narrators to vividly tell the album’s story through the trials of our modern age. The Geneva-born artist brings in an international crowd to serve his cause: Mike Ladd, one of the revolutionary ministers of alternative hip-hop, tells the very adult superhero battle on “Showdown”; Detroit-based Invincible (PPP) flows about water rights on “Blue Gold”; Brooklyn’s Celena Glenn channels the poetic fury of Amiri Baraka on “The Hook”; and Spleen, the Frenchman from Cameroon, collaborates with Glenn and shows that he just might be a punk-infused successor to Prince. The Biggest Piano In Town is an oratorio on demolished ecology and urban consciousness using poetic sensuality. The songs and slams unravel and take on the failings of a jubilant world, avoiding the gimmicks cluttering much of the extemporaneous fare on the market.
Tardin’s music and his freshness of purpose shine as he dedicates himself to playing instruments which these days are seen more as museum objects; namely, the Minimoog, Fender Rhodes and a real grand piano made of lacquered wood. With these three instruments put to good use, Grand Pianoramax’s eruptive, organic sound is a joyful explosion that ransacks conservatories, transcends categories and aims for the dance floor.
FOR THOSE WHO BELIEVE WHAT'S IN THE PRESS:
“Intensley kinetic"
- Billboard Magazine (USA)
“The ever talented pianist and composer, Leo Tardin returns to ObliqSound for his second genius album of awe inspiring avant jazz explorations. Absolutely brilliant and essential for all discerning future music lovers.”
– BPM (USA)
“The Biggest Piano in Town displays Tardin’s ability to send free-form jazz, future funk, art rock and hip-hop into exhilarating free fall.”
– Metro London (UK)
“Grand Pianoramax is a lean, mean, future funk machine.”
– Time Out London (UK)
“It would be a real shame if Grand Pianoramax wasn’t playing to capacity audiences at somewhere like the Queen’s Hall next time. They certainly deserve it.
– Edinburgh Evening News (UK)
“Grand Pianoramax, developed from Leo Tardin’s old school synthesizers and the vocal stylings of Mike Ladd is a broad, rhythmic delirium.”
– Expresso (PT)
“Resolutely modern, urban and greatly imaginative.”
– Jazz Magazine (FR)
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"The Hook"
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