Search - Bill Charlap :: Souvenir

Bill Charlap Trio, Souvenir

Bob | 05/09/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

""There is a secret emotional center in jazz," Whitney Balliett wrote in one of his last reviews for the New Yorker (19-Apr-99, pp. 104-106). "This center, a kind of aural elixir, reveals itself when an improvised phrase or an entire solo or even a complete number catches you by surprise and sends tremors up your spine." Balliett cited several examples, including a number from the CD, "Souvenir," which he certified as a beauty: "all of the remarkable pianist Bill Charlap's "Turnaround," an Ornette Coleman blues that he fills with huge, stuttering chords and sailing-along-the-tonal-edge single-note lines." Other tracks on the album engage the listener -- and, the listener can tell, Bill Charlap -- just as much.



Bob Niles"