Elton John: A Piano Tribute

Toronto-based pianist/arranger Boko Suzuki has turned in a very pleasing and successful array of 14 solo piano arrangements of most of Elton John's best-known songs. The performances are faithful to the tempos and structures of the original recordings; Suzuki generally matches Elton John's own piano parts, with some embellishments to fill in the melody line carried by the voice. Some attempt is also made to replace the denser orchestrations utilized in numbers such as "Levon" and "Tiny Dancer," and the only disadvantage is that if this material had been arranged and recorded with two pianos, some of Davey Johnstone's more interesting guitar parts, as well as other embellishments, might have been captured, but the results here are still eminently satisfying — helped by this being an original 20-bit digital recording — if not revelatory or profound.