DEREK WILLE, The Weight of the Sky

The inspiring and empowering culmination of over 50-plus years exploring the wondrous possibilities of his cherished instrument, Derek Wille’s latest solo piano album The Weight of the Sky is more than simply another melodically compelling, free-flowing and rhythmically eclectic work from a masterful new age artist and composer.

From the graceful, dreamily romantic opening piece “Eyes Across a Room” – inspired by the transcendent moment when he first met his wife – through the lyrical, twilight inspired meditation “Amber,” the collection captures the spirit of a true musical homecoming. While paying respectful and loving homage to many of his lifelong piano heroes (Vince Guaraldi, Bill Evans, George Winston, Keith Jarrett, etc.), the album serves as a retreat and reminder of the sheer beauty, inner peace, creative liberation and great emotional and spiritual possibilities Wille has always found playing solo piano.

This is significant because unlike many new age/ambient artists whose discography is focused on a single style, Wille’s 25 solo albums include everything from punk rock, Latin music, bebop and funk to jazz fusion and orchestral works. With the current resounding one-two punch of his earlier 2025 release Distant Sun Rays and now The Weight of the Sky, he’s come full circle from Save Me from Myself (1998), his first solo piano album, which was album #2 in a three CD-set.  

“No matter how many styles I explore,” Wille says, “I always come back to solo piano. There’s freedom in it that nothing else matches. When it’s just me and the instrument, I can go anywhere I want — no charts, no constraints, no worrying about whether the band is right behind me. Solo piano lets me express all of my influences at once: jazz harmony, classical sensibilities, the new-age textures, the emotional storytelling. Everything flows through my hands in the moment. My 2024 release Slipstream was a jazz fusion project featuring four Grammy winning musicians. It was sharp-edged, angular and full of energy – very much in the spirit of Weather Report.

“The Weight of the Sky, on the other hand, covers the opposite end of the spectrum,” he adds. “It’s more relaxed and reflective, intentionally crafted to serve as a backdrop for your daily life. Whether you’re working, reading, resting, or simply taking a quiet moment, these pieces are meant to accompany you gently—never demanding, always inviting. With this album, I wanted to capture the full emotional and musical range of the solo piano.

Although numerous tracks on the album tap into Wille’s deep reservoir of his piano influences, its deeper inspiration comes from the views he has looking out of his home studio window overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Baja California. Just over a decade ago, he and his wife were driving down Pacific Coast Highway when they passed the spot that would eventually become their home. They instantly felt a magical, welcoming vibe radiating from the community and knew it would be their home.

The Weight of the Sky captivates the heart as an expansive journey that takes Wille and his listeners through a variety of styles and moods – some jubilant, others intimate and reflective, others with love, longing and a search for purpose. Yet its sense of warmth and inviting wonder is its defining “through line,” very much connected to the environment the pianist lives and works in. As he says, “Every day, I look out my studio window at the estuary, the mountains, and the ocean. That view—those shifting colors, the quiet movement of the tides, the way the sky settles over everything—has become an endless source of inspiration for my music. It’s the backdrop to my life and the heartbeat behind so many of the melodies I write.”

While the album’s mesmerizing, life and soul-affirming compositions and performances emerging from those ever-changing colors and tide fluctuations are best experienced as a straight through, eyes closed, imagination sparking 52-minute odyssey, Wille is clear that each melody opens a door to a different place in time, a unique memory and a different feeling. Each one paints its own narrative. Listeners should feel free to choose their own entry points into the full experience if they so choose.

The first I would personally recommend is the title track, a lively, dynamic piece whose simultaneous exploration of light and dark places – reflective of the heavy skies that often settle above Wille’s home – is rooted in the fascinating juxtaposition of an octave motif in the left hand and a right hand free to roam the emotional spectrum.

A few themes emerge as we encounter other potential starting points. For instance, the pianist explores the deeper mysteries of the way shadows creep slowly and dance with ever-changing light on both the warm-hearted, slightly melancholy Bill Evans-influenced ballad “Rhapsody in Shadow” and the whimsical, fast-paced Vince Guaraldi-esque waltz “Shadows on the Sidewalk.”

Other gems, like the sparkling and adventurous, traditional jazz-tinged “Doorway to the Sea” and the quick-paced, Keith Jarrett-tinged romp “Standing in a Storm” (another grand example of the left hand dark/right hand light aesthetic) reflect profoundly on being close to the sea and its mercurial weather patterns, equally full of splendor and ominousness. He also artfully takes us into his studio space for “Reflections on a Quiet Night,” a subtly hypnotic piece infused with the gentle glow of his studio on a silent night.   

Wille showcases his masterful skills as a storyteller without words on the tense and exciting “The Years Between,” which centers on an insistent left-hand ostinato, with chords above that gradually build towards a brief, joyous solo moment. This one is his way of touching upon numerous aspects of his adult life – steady growth, challenges and ultimately, the kind of release from past troubles perhaps only music can provide.

Also impressive are Wille’s spirited mood swings throughout, which immerse us in alternating feelings of charming, nostalgic sweetness (via the lighthearted “Prelude to a Farewell’’ and the cheerful celebration of simple things on “The Way Back”) and the passionate ivory drama that evolves from bittersweet memories, unresolved issues of the past and a need to break free and move forward (the George Winston-flavored “A Lifetime Ago.”

More of the track-to- track darkness/light vibe emerges on the two songs that precede the final track “Night in Amber.” Wille follows the hopeful jubilance of another jazz waltz, “Last Night of the Evening” (which may bring Vince Guaraldi’s timeless “Skating” to mind) with the thoughtful gossamer eloquence of “The Space Between the Notes,” whose title speaks to Wille’s shaping of the tune with wide, deliberate gaps between phrases that let the melody resonate and carry its full emotional weight.