Pianist Pandelis Karayorgis channels formidable influences through his fingertips on his first solo recording, Seventeen Pieces. He presents a mixture of modern jazz standards and originals, many of which he has recorded before in ensemble contexts. However, his solo versions provide fresh perspectives on this material, presenting a pianist who is both innovative and solidly cognizant of tradition.

Two Thelonious Monk tunes are featured: "Ugly Beauty" and "Criss Cross." While Karayorgis's sound is never quite as acerbic and percussive as the early modern jazz icon, his chord voicings, both on these standards and in his own compositions, bear a striking resemblance to Monk's harmonic choices. His rendition of the Wayne Marsh tune "Background Music" is scintillating, with cascading runs that exploit a great deal of the piano's compass. Even a venerable chestnut like Ellington's "Prelude to a Kiss" sounds refreshed here, filled with secundal stabs, fistfuls of complex mixed-interval chords, and angularly digressive melodic solos. Sun Ra also receives suitable homage, in a swinging and effusive rendering of his composition "Super Bronze."

The originals are considerable appealing too. "Fink Sink Tink," displays Karayorgis playing brilliantly fast two-handed runs and post-bop swinging single lines. "Home" is an expansive modern piece which combines piquant dissonances, delicate melodic threads, and clustered chordal thumps. With the variety and quality that this release boasts, the only thing that most listeners may wonder is, "When's solo album number two's release date?" - Christian Carey