Jazz Articles about Charles Chen

About Charles Chen

Album Review

Charles Chen: The Long Way Home

Read "The Long Way Home" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
July 26, 2026

The Long Way Home is a fascinating album, not so much for the music alone--even though that is first-class--but for the lengthy interviews with the Charles Chen quartet's bassist and drummer, 98-year-old Bill Crow and 91-year-old Steve Little, respectively, who still anchor a regular weekly gig at Smalls Jazz Club in New York City. Crow and Little, each of whom has played and recorded with a veritable who's who of jazz luminaries, talk informally about their early influences, ...

Album Review

Charles Chen: Building Characters

Read "Building Characters" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 15, 2025

San Francisco-based pianist and educator Charles Chen returns with Building Characters, his second recording in as many years, and as on his debut album, Charles, Play! (Cellar Music, 2024), he is backed by an all-star supporting cast that includes a front line of trumpeter Randy Brecker and saxophonists Bob Sheppard and Lawrence Feldman. They bolster a sharp and powerful rhythm section consisting of bassist Mike Richmond and drummer Adam Nussbaum. Missing are the members of Chen's quartet ...

Album Review

Charles Chen: Charles, Play!

Read "Charles, Play!" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
March 13, 2024

Pianist Charles Chen makes his recorded debut and confidently answers the command on Charles, Play!, a splendid quartet date on which he is ably supported by veteran tenor saxophonist Ralph Moore and the peerless rhythmic tandem of bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny Washington. Chen wrote four of the album's nine engaging numbers and had the good sense to pair them with three pleasurable standards and tantalizing originals by Charlie Parker ("Passport") and Cedar Walton (the closing ...