Chilly Gonzales

Notebook - Solo Piano 3

Solo Piano III completes the trilogy of Solo Piano albums.

Like any final act, it features complications and consequences, followed by the urgency of crossing the finish line. And like its predecessors, the album ends with a happy ending in C major, but the path is punctuated by more dissonance, tension and ambiguity.

Solo Piano (2004) was released at a more innocent time, when Chilly Gonzales was pioneering the evocation of declining classical and jazz genres, and pushing them hard into the 21st century. This album of fortuitous virtuosity surprised everyone, including the self-proclaimed musical genius.

Solo Piano II (2012) emerged as a small pop masterpiece for a connected world, a transition to a new reality. Now a legendary showman and collaborator with renowned and esteemed artists (Drake, Daft Punk, Feist) Chilly Gonzales unveiled a collection of catchy, refined tracks aimed at pleasing, showing he was ready for prime time.

This second opus certainly satisfied a growing audience ever more eager for Gonzo's imperfectly perfect miniatures.

Solo Piano III emerges at a more problematic inflection point.

Collaborations continue (Room 29 with Jarvis Cocker, Ibeyi, Toddla T...) but Chilly Gonzales is no longer looking to please. He now leaves the false notes. The mysterious chords and singular structures become addictive and end up resonating inescapably. The first edition of the Gonzervatory, an ephemeral music school, has just come to an end, and the teacher has once again become the student he always was and always will be, unafraid to let the music speak for itself.

The musical purity of Solo Piano III is not an antidote to our times, it reflects all the beauty and ugliness that surrounds us.


This collection of scores brings together a selection of 9 faithfully transcribed pieces from the album. For many, these transcriptions reveal a fine musical mechanism that is often deceptive or even invisible to the ear. Their publication required us to make choices, the first being to offer pianists scores as comfortable as possible.

As a bonus, the scores of 2 titles taken from the Chambers album, a Solitaire respiration and a Cello happy ending neither major, nor minor, but in 2-piano mode (Piano/Cello Duo).