Louis Landon

Here is the latest review of "unwind" from the July 2006 issue of Keyboard Magazine by Assistant Editor Michael Gallant:

Louis is right on when he calls unwind "melodic, optimistic, and peaceful." Though this New Age solo piano album is indeed meditative and mellow, it sacrifices no musical rigor to achieve those ends. With backgrounds in jazz, Latin music, rock, pop, film composing, and classical piano (he's accompanied Baryshnikov, among other artists), Louis brings his breadth and depth of experience to bare here. His playing and compositions are sensitive as they are complex and, even within the New Age aesthetic, a diverse range of influences is more than apparent.

"unwind" CD review by Michael Woodhead - LuxAeterna - January 11, 2006 “Landon's compositions and playing draw you into a world of personal warmth and joyousness.”

"unwind" CD review by Kathy Parsons - Solo Piano Publications - January 30, 2006 “I hear a lot of relaxing piano music, but “unwind” stands out as an exceptional CD with its quiet sophistication and gentle elegance.”

"unwind" CD review by RJ Lannan - NewAge Reporter.com - February 26, 2006 "Louis Landon has some powerful and poignant music here. His style is quite gentle and his compositions are emotion-filled vignettes of how life is and how it should be."

"100% Me" by Kirstin Bergquist - Pulse Magazine - April 2005 “Landon is quite an interesting man – a true original. He is the type of musician who is dedicated to sharing music with the world in a way that so many of his contemporaries seem to have forgotten.”

Joyous Spirit CD review by Doug Morris - Indie Music Appreciation Group - December 2004 “I don't care what kind of music you think you like, buy this album."

The Gershwins, Cole Porter, & Me - CD review by Steve Israel - Times Herald Record - March 5, 2004 "The real test of the CD comes on the third song – after Landon sings and plays the Gershwins' "'S Wonderful" and Cole Porter's "Night and Day." That's when he and his trio perform an original Landon tune. Can he even begin to hold his own with these great songwriters? Yes, he can. Landon has a smooth crooner's voice with enough range to translate the everyman emotions of these timeless songs." - Various sources

By Michael Woodhead
Light and simple, but permeated with heartfelt performances, Unwind invites you to do exactly that.

As with much New Age Jazz, Landon's music avoids the usual discord often associated with jazz music, and offers a flowing, moody environment instead-- Peaceful and Freefalling , for example, lightly spring with jazz-like rhythms, but fall gently on the ears; and My Brooke , with its delicate refrains, has touches of pop music.

Although not suitable for meditation or massage therapy, nevertheless, Unwind offers a good hour's worth of relaxing music. Deeply subjective in their creation, Landon's compositions and playing draw you into a world of personal warmth and joyousness meant for you to share one-on-one.

Louis Landon says his "personal mission in life is to create a more emotional world by creating and performing music from the heart".

On this album, he begins to achieve that dream. - LuxAeterna - January 11, 2006

Here is the latest review of unwind from the July 2006 issue of Keyboard Magazine by Assistant Editor Michael Gallant:

Louis is right on when he calls unwind "melodic, optimistic, and peaceful." Though this New Age solo piano album is indeed meditative and mellow, it sacrifices no musical rigor to achieve those ends. With backgrounds in jazz, Latin music, rock, pop, film composing, and classical piano (he's accompanied Baryshnikov, among other artists), Louis brings his breadth and depth of experience to bare here. His playing and compositions are sensitive as they are complex and, even within the New Age aesthetic, a diverse range of influences is more than apparent. - Keyboard Magazine - July 2006 issue

By Doug Morris

As of today, 21 Nov '04, I currently have 1,286 music cd's, classical, country, new age, rock, & others in my personal collection. This album is one of the top 10 discs in that collection. I made the decision to go looking for more New Age artists to add to my collection, and of course, I started my search at CDBABY.com. This album was one of those the search found. I wanted a copy as soon as I heard the clips from it. The first time I played the disc after it arrived, I fell in love with it. I can't stop listening to it!! It lives on my stereo. I have been playing it for everyone I know and they all want a copy of it. Well, okay, I've ordered 20 copies of it from Louis so I can use them as Christmas presents this year. So, you might say I kind of like the disc

So what's so great about it? It has 11 tracks on it and every one of them is a fine piece of wonderful music. It's what I would have to call “New Age Jazz” because it's definitely great piano jazz but it's also truly a New Age experience at the same time. It sounds for all the world as though you're listening to a really good, well rehearsed jazz quartet or quintet, but it's all just one man, one very fine musician using various instruments and putting down one track at a time till it ends up in a sound that easily convinces your ear that you're listening to a whole small orchestra. You'll hear guitars, string bass, organ, wind instruments, drums of several kinds including steel, other percussion instruments, even a little Lionel Hampton xylophone, a little Ramsey Lewis here and there, and over all of it, the sweet, undeniably great piano of a pianist who started at age 5. It's got a rock beat, a Latin beat, blues tones, jazz phrasing, a mix of acoustic and electronic synthesizer sounds, melodies, harmonies, counterpoint, I mean geez folks, this music has it all. It is guaranteed to have you tapping your feet, bouncing, moving and swaying with the rhythms whether you're sitting, standing or walking. It will move you!! Fantastic work!!!

If I were to try to pick out favorite tracks, I guess they would be “Pursuit Of Happiness”, “Golden Glow”, “Carnival”, “Amalfi Dream”, “Saved By An Angel”, and my most favorite of them all, track 11, “The Artist's Way.” The last 60 seconds of this song will absolutely compel you to get out of your chair and MOVE! It's GREAT STUFF!!! In fact, I simply could not pick just one 30 second segment so I have used three segments from different parts of the song to demonstrate what I mean without giving the man's work away for free, which I don't believe in doing.

I'll also say that the songs titled "Starbright" & “Breath Of Life” are probably the ones that most reminded me of a true “New Age” electronic music work, like maybe something a David Arkenstone or David Lanz, or maybe even Yanni would come up with. The piece titled "Skye's Song", with it's oriental flavor might fit that also, or maybe even a work by Kitaro.

Bottom line? Buy it. I don't care what kind of music you think you like, buy this album. It's now on my “Indie Essential Albums” list. I promise you'll find yourself saying that it was some of the best money you ever spent on music. Guaranteed. Folks, Mr. Landon has served up a masterpeice of ear candy; come feast yourself.
- Indie Music Appreciation Group - December 2004

Bob Cypher - staff writer

Louis Landon "wowed" the audience at the Suffern Library last Sunday afternoon. As one of the staff members said in passing, "I've never seen so many people in this room as we have today.

More than a hundred Frank Sinatra lovers spent over an hour listening to Landon croon the famous songs from the repertoire of the late "Chairman of The Board". Songs like "The Summer Wind", "Autumn Leaves", "Come Fly With Me", "Witchcraft", "Under My Skin", "The Way You Look Tonight", "The Lady Is A Tramp", "Embraceable You", "Body and Soul," and other well known melodies of the late, great Sinatra. Landon was quite comfortable with his audience and his style of music both singing and piano playing was ideal for his "Tribute to Sinatra" program.

A Chestnut Ridge resident, he plays and sing a little like Harry Connick but with more of a soothing relationship with the keyboard and the vocals. There are many original pieces interspersed with the program, which blended perfectly with the Sinatra music.

Landon is a vocalist, pianist but also a composer. There were certain well-known tunes which Landon seemed to embellish with his grand piano accepting every note graciously. The audience loved his improvisational creative license. Landon has played all over the country and abroad and the talented musician appeared to be just as comfortable playing before an audience of beyond "rock and rollers". Landon had his albums, four in total, for sale after the show and he also told the audience of his website where the albums can be purchased.

The website, www.louislandon.com also tells a lot about his background and his upcoming show dates.
- Rockland County Times - March 11, 2004

by Steve Israel

The real test of "The Gershwins, Cole Porter and Me" comes on the third song – after Sullivan and Rockland County pianist/vocalist Louis Landon sings and plays the Gershwins' "'S Wonderful" and Cole Porter's "Night and Day" with his usual passion, panache and swing.

That's when he and his trio of bassist Harvie S and drummer Richie Morales perform an original Landon tune, live like all the songs on the album.

Can he even begin to hold his own with these great songwriters?

Yes, he can. While "Now Is the Time for Love" isn't an instant classic, it is a terrific pop tune, with a peppy, shapely, hook-filled melody and stick-in-your-head lines: "The way you put your hand in mine/The stars above can't help but shine/Now is the time for love."
The originals, amid classics that include "I've Got You Under My Skin" and "Our Love Is Here to Stay," make this album a delight.

Landon has a smooth crooner's voice with enough range to translate the everyman emotions of these timeless songs. He can make his piano soar on flights of fancy or subtly push his trio, or duo with bassist Lew Scott, in toe-tapping swing.
- Times Herald Record - March 5, 2004

Multi-talented musician Louis Landon has come a long way in a short time. At 53, the accomplished pianist, singer and songwriter, who lives in Chestnut Ridge, has just released a new CD, "unwind," that is quickly growing in popularity, playing on almost 100 radio stations nationwide.

Landon will perform songs from his new album at 6:30 p.m. this Friday, March 3, at Pamela's on the Hudson in Newburgh. You can find his music on the Web at CDBaby, Amazon and iTunes. to find out more about him - he is also available to play house concerts - visit his Web site at www.louislandon.com

JN - Describe your lifestyle and how it contributes to your process as an artist.

LL - An aspect of my lifestyle that contributes most to my creativity as a composer and recording artist is the time I have alone. It is usually between the hours of noon and 3:00 PM during the week. That is the time that I have the house (and my piano) to myself and I can play and sing as loud as I want. I can practice things that would drive other people insane. I will sometimes repeat musical lines or songs over and over again. I can sing out the most nonsensical lyrics to a song I might be working on. Another way I get more alone time is by staying up late at night in my studio. I can work there while everyone else is sleeping. It is very difficult for me to create with anyone else listening. I also have to structure my own time and do things the way that I like to do them. I am fortunate because a lot of what is called “my work” is play.

JN - When did you start playing piano?

LL - I started playing piano when I was 4 years old.

JN - Did you know then that it would always be an important part of your life?

LL - I didn’t know that music would be an important part of my life until I quit piano at age 13 and began playing guitar. I returned to the piano at 20, when it became clear to me that being a musician would be my life’s work.

JN - Who have been your musical influences and why?

LL - This is the first time that I am writing about my father as my first musical influence. He played piano and sang and did voices for cartoon characters among so many other creative things in his life. But first and foremost, he was a musician. It’s because of him that there was a piano around in the first place. And he played it a lot. When I made the switch to guitar, my musical influences were Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, John Mayall, BB King, and so many other rock and blues oriented musicians. The turning point back to piano happened to me when I heard Chick Corea’s “Light as a Feather.” That album went right to my gut and I knew that I wanted to play jazz. It was at that point that I went back to piano and enrolled at Berklee College of Music. I studied with Charlie Banacas and Alan Pasqua. The pianists that I listened to were Bud Powell, Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, and Keith Jarrett. I think that if someone studied those four pianists, they would understand almost everything about jazz be-bop and post be-bop piano playing. All of them exceptional musicians and piano players. Outside of pianists, I listened to Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Dizzy Gillespie, to name a few.

JN - Would you tell us about your new album, “Unwind”?

LL - I was almost going to write about this in question #1, but I decided to go in a different direction. But going back to lifestyle, I found the process of writing and recording “unwind” a contrarian experience. I was playing a lot of gigs. I was teaching at Rockland Conservatory a few days a week. I was a family man with two teenage daughters and a working wife. And, I was working out at least five times a week to test for my black belt in Kyokoshin karate. With all that going on, I decided to record a solo piano CD after hearing the recorded sounds that Paul Hirsch was getting at Rose’s Lounge Studios. My intention was to record a jazz CD of original material that I had already written. However, every time I would start to play the music that I had brought in, things would slow down. Nothing up tempo seemed to work. And it seemed that anything chromatic or any music with complex or dissonant chords wouldn’t work either. So, I had to throw out a lot of music. I ended up doing a lot of improvisation that was not in the bebop or jazz vocabulary. And I was leaving a lot of space between the notes. Some other kind of music was trying to come out and I needed to get out of the way and let it happen. What I ended up with was what two reviewers have called “New Age Jazz.” The few things that give the word jazz any validity is that some of the chords and chord voicings come from a jazz place. And there is improvisation. But the improvisation does not come out of the bebop tradition. It is melodic and simple. What the music turned out to be was my way of relaxing and getting away from the hectic life I was living. I needed to “unwind.” What is magical about the mus - With John Nelson - Pulse Magazine - March 4, 2006