Chilly Gonzales is the Philip Glass of the iPad set. But that might be selling the pianist-cum-rapper-cum-producer-cum-actor with the cartoon-character name very short. Gonzales’ latest full-length, Ivory Tower, is the soundtrack to a film of the same name, in which he stars alongside Peaches and Tiga in a chess-battling love triangle. Ivory’s primarily instrumental piano compositions alternate between jumping, swing-y, saucy grooves, aggressive belligerence, and inquisitive suspense. However, it is live where Gonzales really shines, as I recently caught him at Café Largo, in Los Angeles. Touring under the marquee “Piano Talk Show”, Gonzales mans a beat-up old upright piano, whose innards are exposed with the front panel ripped and worn off. Gonzales plays emotively. Fingers fly over the keys, sometimes with such speed that one can’t actually see his digits. Looking like a rabbi in a dressing gown and slippers, Gonzales’ stage presence is commanding, and hilarious. The self-aggrandizing virtuoso claims himself as such, but does so with tongue firmly planted in cheek, and you forgive him for it because you know that he is, in fact, an absolute musical genius.