I am assured that “no one’s getting in” who doesn’t already have a ticket to the sold-out Ramsey Lewis show at the Coral Gables Congregational Church on Thursday night. But just in case you are going to be there, or can talk someone out of a ducat, it’s worth noting that this appearance will be one of only a few like it that this jazz eminence will be giving.

That’s because Lewis, who’s been comfortably ensconced in the roster of great jazz pianists for decades, is trying something new in this, his 75th year: A solo concert. Most of the time, Lewis appears with his trio, and his website calendar shows that’s who he’ll be appearing with for the bulk of his appearances this year. But on Thursday in South Florida, it’s a solo piano concert, and in jazz, those are far rarer than solo classical piano concerts, and it says something about Lewis’ capacity for growth that he’s going to be branching out in this direction.

Also on his website, Lewis has posted an interesting video about the process that led to his newest album, Ramsey Plays Ramsey: Songs From the Heart, which also is a first for Lewis in that it’s an album entirely of original music. That, too, is a departure: After 50 years of playing and writing, Lewis finally will let his compositional work carry an entire album.

Ramsey Lewis (at right)

What both of these moves tell me is that the work of the true artist is never really done, and that there are always new things to try, even if in this case it’s a return to a much older thing – a solo recital. I like what he says on his blog about doing the solo work, and that he’s not really alone without bass and drums because instead he’s with one of his oldest, most trusted friends in the person (so to speak) of his piano.

Practicing your instrument is a lonely business, and composition is lonelier still. I confess to a certain romanticism about the endeavor, about the jazz composer sitting at his piano long after the crowds have gone home, trying out that progression he heard in his head somewhere between the second and third sets, or attempting to find once again that special chord he stumbled on that held the mystery and the promise of fresh new music to come. The light still burns above the instrument, there’s some coffee long since cooled in a cup, and in front of him sits a page of new paper that he’s filling with some tentative marks, some first sketches of the map to what he knows will be a fruitful land.

When I was so much younger than today, one of the big stories in jazz was the solo concertizing of Keith Jarrett, who would famously head out onto stage to his piano and then fill the evening with improvisation, sometimes taking a suggestion about a key or a first chord from someone in the crowd. At the time, I thought making a whole concert out of this was self-indulgent, and the critical rapture that greeted the work far overblown.

But with the years I’ve come to understand how bold, risky and exciting those concerts were, and what artistic courage it took to go out and invite the audience along as you explored things, without the crutch of a reliable standard or a few other instruments along to carry the day when inspiration flagged.

So I applaud Ramsey Lewis for going out and showing concertgoers the most intimate, most exposed aspects of his art, and I think the 450 or so people who will get to hear him Thursday night are likely to be treated to an important evening, and probably one they’ll remember for some time to come.