Jazz Articles about Charlie Dennard

About Charlie Dennard

Album Review

Deep Blue by New Orleans pianist Charlie Dennard and his crew is a jambalaya in which Dennard displays fine keyboard skills and a flair for writing melodic tunes. The kick-off, “St. Charles Strut," is all 'Nawlins frontline contemporized. It is a Dennard original which offers an ear-worm melody that's similar to the first few notes of “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes." That motif reverberates both in major and minor keys throughout the track. “Mojave" is a pulsating ...

Album Review

Charlie Dennard: From Brazil To New Orleans

Read "From Brazil To New Orleans" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
April 29, 2014

Thousands of miles separate Brazil and New Orleans, but pianist/composer Charlie Dennard thinks these two locales are a lot closer than that. This album is his way of showing that. Dennard, a former student of Ellis Marsalis who's served as a music director for Cirque du Soleil productions and shared the stage with drummer Stanton Moore, trumpeter Kermit Ruffins and numerous other NOLA heavies, uses a rotating cast of twenty musicians to put life into this line ...