Blue Note Records Present Pianist Bill Charlap

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In 2005, on the occasion of the Village Vanguard's 70th anniversary, The Wall Street Journal wrote that the heralded Greenwich Village jazz club represented "the center of the known jazz universe to an international circle of musicians and music fans." During the weeklong celebration of the club's birthday, a handful of musicians headlined the 123-seat nightspot, including Bill Charlap, who for the last several years has held forth as one of the Vanguard's most popular performers.

On May 22, Blue Note Records will release Charlap's first live recording date, Bill Charlap Trio-Live at The Village Vanguard, a nine-song snapshot of the New York-born and -based pianist who supplies a rigor-meets-romance musical sensibility. The date features tunes from such renowned jazz composers as Gerry Mulligan and Jim Hall and music from the Great American Songbook. The live recording is produced by Joel Moss, who also recorded and mixed the album.

From May 22 through June 3, Charlap and his longstanding, decade-old trio of bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny Washington, a brilliant rhythm team with two of the most informed musicians on their instruments, will celebrate the release of Live at the Village Vanguard during a special engagement at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola.

"The Village Vanguard is Carnegie Hall to us", says Charlap, whose live date is his fifth Blue Note CD as a leader. "It's the greatest listening room in jazz. There are many other wonderful clubs in New York, but playing the Village Vanguard is home. The venerable room has seen some of the greatest jazz performances in history with many of them caught on record."

Indeed, jazz's greatest artists have recorded there, including such jazz masters as John Coltrane, Bill Evans and Sonny Rollins as well as an all-star cast of this generation's most significant artists, including Wynton Marsalis, Joshua Redman and Joe Lovano.

"The Village Vanguard will go on forever", says Charlap, who notes that so many jazz clubs in New York have come and gone. "There's something timeless about the room." As for the Vanguard's acoustics, Charlap says, "The shape of the club, the curtain on the wall, the tables, the carpet, all contribute to the unique atmosphere. On the bandstand itself, you can hear each player perfectly. It's immediate, which is what jazz improvisers need to have to make those split-second decisions in perfect time."

On Live at The Village Vanguard, the trio puts its signature stamp on three songs composed by Harold Arlen, including "It's Only a Paper Moon", "Last Night When We Were Young" and "My Shining Hour." On the latter, a set highlight judging from the audience's applause, the trio playfully romps with bop energy, with each member stretching in solo excursions. "The rhythm team of Peter and Kenny is brilliant", says Charlap, who first enlisted the pair to play with him on his 1997 Criss Cross album, All Through the Night, recorded in 1997. "The band became a band right away. We had automatic chemistry."

"We love the music-the past, the present, the future", says Charlap. "Live at the Village Vanguard is representative of what we do each set on a nightly basis."

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