Arriale Changes Look Of Jazz

Jazz will sneak up and catch you by surprise. It might be an artist new to you or an old, familiar piece of music heard for the first time in a new way, but when it happens, everything changes.

Suddenly, there’s a new voice, or a way to hear things differently; and since the music is deeply rooted in its own history - and so forward-looking, too - a new discovery has the power to make all the music sound fresh again.

Lynne Arriale, who will appear at Hobart’s tonight and Friday, is a New York pianist who can do that to you. Just listen to her version of Thelonious Monk’s “Think of One” to re-experience the sense of discovery that came with hearing Monk for the first time.

Arriale, a Milwaukee-born, classically-trained pianist who came to jazz late, but arrived with a convert’s zeal. She won the Great American Jazz Competition in 1993 and her 1996 recording, “With Words Unspoken,” was voted Critic’s Choice - Best CDs of ‘96 by JazzTimes magazine.

Marian McPartland has become her champion and last year Arriale participated in the first annual Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Last November, the London Times’ Clive Davis added his voice: “Arriale can unleash glittering singlenote runs in the right hand, but she is much more interested in tonal colour and contrast, her long chordal sweeps creating her own dreamscape.”

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: The Lynne Arriale Trio will perform tonight at 8 and Friday at 9 p.m. at Hobart’s Jazz Lounge in Cavanaugh’s Fourth Avenue, 110 E. Fourth. Tickets: $4.