Anyone remember those Rudessions that our former writing buddy Gat/Whiteacre used to post? This is the guy those were inspired by. Jordan Rudess is the piano player for Dream Theater, one of my favorite bands ever.He also has a tendency to insert out-of-place or silly little interludes into otherwise normal songs, hence those Rudessions. But that aside, he’s an absolutely incredible pianist. I believe he studied at Julliard.
This next video shows the band all together. This song is “Dark Eternal Night” from their album Systematic Chaos. It’s become one of my favorites of theirs. Beware—it’s long. Not everyone will have the stamina to listen to such incredible, mind-numbing, musical awesomeness for that long. If you wish, skip to what’s one of the best guitar solos of all time at about 5:50. This song does feature a Rudess keyboard solo as well, but to be honest he’s not my favorite part of the band. I could have picked a number of other songs that do a better job of featuring his talent. Actually, I’m not that into guitar solos, either. But every now and then, John Petrucci puts together a solo that totally fries my brain. This is one of them.