David is on youtube playing three of his pieces

[ted]

It has been a mystery to me for nine years why this wonderful musician and pianist is not better known.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkjJIEG_-8c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTpVl5CmBOM&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTI3UGPHl5U

[thierry13]

He plays jazz.

[thalbergmad]

Thats lovely Ted, I am sure he would have made a fortune during the silent era. On one of those pieces, i half expected Harold Lloyd to pop up on my screen.

This is happy music and makes a refreshing change to the sometimes suicide inducing strains from the classical world.

Thanks

Thal

[m19834]

He plays jazz.

Perhaps any masterful pianist ought to be capable of playing in the "style" of jazz .  I agree with Thal, quite refreshing !  Thanks for posting this, Ted.

[rc]

As if thierry should be the first to reply to this!

Well I wasn't going to reply because I'm not very familiar with this style to make much judgement, but wouldn't it be more accurately called ragtime?

Anyways, I did learn a rag sometime ago and had a lot of fun with it.  All I can say is I enjoy it, and plan to play some more of it some day.  Thanks ted

[thierry13]

Perhaps any masterful pianist ought to be capable of playing in the "style" of jazz .

Indeed. But actually only playing in the "style" of jazz doesn't prove anything by itself.

[ted]

You are quite right, rc. Much of David's music has its origins in ragtime, and more generally in the music of the New World including Latin America. Somehow though, it all comes out sounding like David and nothing else. That, for me, is what makes his music so vital. I know he does not like the term "ragtime" because of what he calls its "honky-tonk hatched spectres", in other words, the frequent association of the idiom with out of tune pianos, saloons and the like. He is very particular about how people interpret his carefully formed and meticulously notated pieces. In short, I think his creative impulse lies much closer to composition than to spontaneous improvisation. He is definitely not a "jazz pianist", as we usually understand the description.