#Prince one nite alone solo piano full

Clocking in at nearly 12 and 13 minutes respectively, opener “Rainbow Children” and “Xenophobia” (a new song) recall the dark, rhythmic jazz-funk of Miles Davis in the early 1970s, running the voodoo down with some jaw-dropping guitar work. And yet, the jazz fusion sound that Prince experimented with on The Rainbow Children truly comes alive, well, live. Nearly an hour passes before the band plays anything resembling a hit. ( Up All Nite With Prince also includes a DVD of Live at the Aladdin Las Vegas, recorded two weeks after the One Nite Alone… Tour concluded.) There is no “Purple Rain” or “Little Red Corvette” on the setlist half of the 10 songs on the first part of the set are from The Rainbow Children, which is nobody’s favorite Prince record. It’s music for a day when the rain isn’t purple, but grey.Ĭompiled from nearly a dozen shows, One Nite Alone… Live! is a fascinating and, at times frustrating, document of Prince in concert. In its best moments, One Nite Alone… is muted but sultry, and even if it didn’t directly influence them, you can hear its sound echoed by artists like Blood Orange and Moses Sumney.

#Prince one nite alone solo piano full

“Pearls B4 the Swine” is an interesting case-its subtle bongos and guitar offer a glimpse of what it might’ve sounded like with a full band, but there’s enough funk in its stripped-down form to have you tapping your foot as you’re listening to it. The title track wouldn’t have the same gravity if it weren’t Prince alone in a pale blue spotlight, and the instrumental flourishes on “Here on Earth” and “A Case of U” give the songs just enough body without weighing them down. Other songs benefit from the minimalist approach. The staccato piano chords of “Have a Heart” would have translated well into a spiky, strutting guitar riff, while “Young and Beautiful” feels almost like an early version of “Pop Life” or “Strange Relationship.” And though “Avalanche” presents an intriguing lyrical concept, questioning the motives of Abraham Lincoln and John Hammond, as a piece of music it just feels unfinished-something that would have made more sense in a louder, angrier form. (Both albums include gorgeous covers of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You,” though the version on One Nite Alone… is more than twice as long.) But where Piano & a Microphone was a collection of demos recorded in a single take, One Nite Alone… is a proper studio album that still feels, at times, like a collection of demos.

Listening to One Nite Alone… in 2020, it’s impossible not to compare it to Piano & a Microphone 1983, exhumed from Prince’s fabled vault of unreleased material in 2018. Now, One Nite Alone… is finally seeing a wide release, both as its own slab of vinyl and with One Nite Alone… Live! as a part of the new Up All Nite With Prince: The One Nite Alone Collection CD box set. For a long time, the only way to hear these songs was via file-sharing site or bootlegs. He released this album in the middle of his One Nite Alone… Tour, but only to members of the NPG Music Club, who received it in the mail in May 2002 or were gifted it when they purchased the One Nite Alone… Live! box set that December. While recording The Rainbow Children (2001)-a peculiar work in his discography that embraced a jazzier sound and more spiritual lyrics-Prince started and finished work on One Nite Alone…, which that featured little more than the artist singing and playing piano. But it wasn’t until the beginning of 2003 that he released his first live album. Even as the quality of Prince’s studio recordings ebbed, the man always brought the thunder live. You could spend hours watching clips of Prince in concert on YouTube: singing “ Purple Rain” in a downpour at the Super Bowl XLI Halftime Show, re-imagining Radiohead’s “ Creep” as an eight-minute power ballad while headlining Coachella, crashing George Harrison’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction to play the climactic guitar solo on “ While My Guitar Gently Weeps” with such purple-hot intensity as to wipe the stupid white-boy-blues look off of Marc Mann’s face.