JAN LULEY
piano • vocals • concerts • coaching
Luley's concert programmes range thematically from New Orleans, piano blues and Creole music to his own compositions. His new programme "Baltic Blues" also explores the music of Estonian composers such as Arvo Pärt and Raimond Valgre across genres. Combinations with a reading or international guest musicians open up further exciting horizons.
Concert programs
Solo & Trio
Reflections Of New Orleans
Musical images from the Crescent City
In “Reflections Of New Orleans,” Luley’s own compositions blend seamlessly with songs by James Booker, Harry Connick Jr. and Tom Waits to create a sensual, grooving whole.
A stylistic border crossing between classic jazz, funky New Orleans grooves, blues and Creole piano music. With deep devotion, Luley draws on tradition and modernity at the same time and plays each concert with lustful expressiveness between tender, airy clouds of sound and gripping energy.
"He masters the piano like no other and tells […] the musical story of New Orleans. He combines blues, European classical music, African and Caribbean rhythms and plays swing or rock'n'roll with the same ease. He also tells stories, sings and develops his own perspective on the city."
(nh24.de, 15.09.2019)
Southern Nights
Concert & Reading
Piano music, stories and anecdotes about New Orleans and the early days of jazz, readings from musicians' biographies and fictional literature.
In his stage program “Southern Nights,” Jan Luley lets the audience share in “his” New Orleans, revives the infamous Storyville with its “professors” for one evening, raves about Creole cuisine and talks about the Mardi Gras Indians, the omnipresent second-line rhythm and why the median strip of the streets in New Orleans is called “neutral ground.”
"Luley is a virtuoso on the keys [...]. But Luley is also a calm narrator of the roots of jazz and he is a conscientious archivist who has understood that music and its styles do not survive on sheet music, but by being played and reinterpreted."
(Heidenheimer Zeitung, 25.11.2014)
Piano Créole
A declaration of love to Creole music
Tropical temperatures, high humidity, exotic fruits, people dancing to Caribbean rhythms. Music that captivates, can be infinitely melancholic, and then exudes exuberant happiness. Pianist Jan Luley has taken on this music and plays (also together with clarinetist Thomas l'Etienne as "Boonoonoonous") the original compositions of the old masters such as Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Jean-Alphonse, but also adds his own pieces and new tones to the genre. "Piano Créole" is a program that seems to have been made for Luley, in which he can bring in his deep understanding of the blues as well as his light-as-a-feather, rapid virtuosity across all registers of the piano."
"The rolling basses of the left and the playful melodic figures of the right, the Creole rhythm, as well as the incendiary tempo, elicit storms of applause."
(Jazz podium)
BEST OF BLUES, BOOGIE & NEW ORLEANS RHYTHM 'N' BLUES
Piano-Groove at its best
From childhood, the blues and especially boogie woogie were one of the most important factors in Jan Luley's music. Today he is one of the top league of German boogie woogie pianists. He has played with Angela Brown, Janice Harrington, Jeanne Carroll, alongside Little Willie Littlefield, Louisiana Red, Big Jay Mc Neely and many other blues greats. A special feature of his blues is the ever-present New Orleans flavor and the influence of pianists such as Allen Toussaint, James Booker, Huey Smith and Dr. John.
“When you hear him play, you can hear his actually black New Orleans soul racing across the keys, ..." the press wrote about him.
BALTIC BLUES
Piano music, world music, Baltic Jazz, Blues, Nordic Folk
Countless journeys have taken the versatile pianist and singer Jan Luley to New Orleans, Louisiana, and also to Estonia, his wife's homeland. The vastness of the Estonian moors and miles of Baltic coastline, as well as the mysterious atmosphere of the Louisiana swamps and the lively music scene in New Orleans inspired him to write numerous compositions and influenced his sound and his playing style.
Luley plays his own compositions as a soloist or with his trio, mixed with titles by composers from Estonia to Louisiana. Music between dreamy soundscapes, Creole rhythms and Baltic blues.
"Luley dedicated the first piece of the evening, "Lootus" (Hope), to the independence and freedom of the Baltic States to the applause of the audience. A catchy ballad-like melody develops over jazz chords into improvised soundscapes and sparkling runs reminiscent of Keith Jarrett." (Hersfelder Zeitung, March 5, 2024)