Two chances are coming up in May to catch one of Europe’s most imaginative jazz pianists in more unusual solo concert mode.

2014 was quite a year for Stefano Bollani followers with the release of two albums, the first a group album of new compositions recorded in June the previous year at Avatar in New York. With highlights including ‘No Pope No Party’ shrouded in a Cool School atmosphere, busy stop/start flurries smothered in bright voicings, the melody fracturing into more open improvising space, Bollani began the North African-hinting ‘Alobar e Kudra’ with a shimmering atmosphere finding a good deal of metrical room to encourage bass and drums to assert themselves before the album got deep on ‘Las hortensias’. Bollani had never met Bill Frisell before this recording session, so there was certainly a sense of freshness in the band’s interplay on the accessible material, Bollani, Michel Petrucciani-like in his more decorative moments, a virtuoso life force in front of his piano’s keyboard. 

A few months later there were even more delights in store with Sheik Yer Zappa Bollani’s infectious sense of humour going into overdrive on a project that couldn’t be more different yet undertaken with more serious intent as the pianist tackled jazz that isn’t so much dead as Frank Vincent Zappa memorably put it but one that only smells funny.

Dates for the solo concerts are Howard Assembly Room, Leeds on 21 May; and next day at the Norfolk & Norwich Festival (Norwich Playhouse), on the evening of 22 May. Stefano Bollani, above