Pianist David Lanz celebrated more than the holidays with Thursday night's third annual Winter Solstice concert at Nordstrom Recital Hall.

Performing both solo and with a band that included Gary Stroutsos (flute) and Swil Kanim (violin), his two-hour concert marked a return to the glory days of meditative improvisation.

Three selections from "Spirit Romance", his most recent release and his first on the Narada label since 1998, provided the evening's highlights.

The title song, written by Lanz and Stroutsos, who shares artist credit on the CD, was centered on a truly magical melody that had been heard by Stroutsos in a dream of a friend who had passed away. A tidelike arrangement ebbed and flowed with this tune that beckoned the listener to a world of dreams.

Lanz's son Michael joined the band, which also featured drummer Larry Mahlis and bassist Keith Lowe, on a Nigerian percussion instrument for "Blue Largo", a jazz piece reminiscent of one of Charles Lloyd's early flower jams. Stroutsos' use of the ancient Chinese xiao flute gave the music a mystical quality even when the tempo was propelled by a contemporary bass line.

The band also played new music from the upcoming "Living Temples" soundtrack. Pieces such as "Desert Star" seemed designed to take the listener on imaginative journeys across fabricated terrains.

The concert opened with Lanz, dressed in near-flamboyant purple tails, performing solo renditions of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" and "Angels We Have Heard on High", encasing these much-loved melodies in arpeggios that evoked the imagined sounds of reindeer bells.

Between songs, Lanz rose from his piano to address the audience in a jocular fashion that occasionally crossed the line into stand-up comedy. A lengthy riff on Christmas shopping kept the audience in stitches, and his confession to being a Presbyterian, albeit a cosmic one, provided a humorous lead-in to "O Holy Night".

He ended the concert with a lovely version of "Cristofori's Dream", introduced as the song he is contractually obligated to play, and a whimsical turn through three approaches to a theme from "The Nutcracker". The band then returned to encore with an unreleased arrangement of "Silent Night".



Bill White is a Seattle-based arts and entertainment writer.
He can be reached at Bwhi61@hotmail.com