During the pandemic, and the periods of lockdown that ensued to contain the virus, many artists took the opportunity of recording solo albums, and something of a deluge of such albums has resulted, here with Yaniv Taubenhouse’s Hope. He is a young pianist with a mature touch, good time but a bit early in his career to be taking on the challenge of a solo album as you really do need to have something to say to make the format work – there’s no oomph from the bass player or the drummer to lift you. Opening with an original, ‘Once Upon A Time’, a pleasant enough melody is played over and over again with slight variation right up to the limits of the boredom threshold. The melody of Cole Porter’s ‘It’s All Right With Me’ mercifully does not receive such treatment — he enters his improvisation after the exposition the melody and reveals himself a neat, if unassuming player reluctant to stray too far from the safety of Porter’s distinctive theme. As the album unwinds through Kenny Wheeler’s ‘Consolation,’ his own ‘Hope’, ‘Conversation’ and ‘Impromtu’ the effect is of a solo pianist in a hotel lounge providing pleasant background music for the early evening trade. The tempos on each selection adhere to a stately moderato, and with the absence of significant musical event, the concentration wanders as one number blurs into the next.