Jann Rutherford
Jann Rutherford's piano unfolds with liquid logic and a warm, melting touch. Her original compositions move between spacious solo improvisation, lyrical ballads and lightly swinging jazz, always with humour, concision and a keen ear for harmonic colour.
New Zealand-born and a distinctive voice on the Australian jazz scene, she writes and plays with classical clarity inside a jazz vocabulary. Discovery is pure solo piano: original pieces and improvisations that range from gentle narrative flights to blues and drum-kit fantasies, each idea kept lean and luminous, treble notes left glistening in the air. On The Scented Garden she opens the frame to quartet and quintet, still at the centre with that unflustered grace. Freely improvised duets sit beside jazz waltzes, hard-bop swagger and through-composed chamber writing for piano and saxophone. Lines melt into one another; the lyricism stays unforced even when the swing hardens.
Jann Rutherford is featured on the following titles
The Scented Garden
Recorded just before her untimely death in early 2003, this CD is a heartfelt testament to Jann Rutherford, one of Australia’s truly individual voices in jazz.
Composer
Discovery
Jann Rutherford is one of the most distinctive voices in Australian jazz. This debut solo album by the New Zealand-born pianist presents only original compositions, funded by the Emerging Artists Scheme of the Australia Council.
Composer