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Cyrus Chesnut: Expounding on Elvis
by R.J. DeLuke
When the bespectacled man with the boyish round face sits down at the grand piano to play these days, listeners can still expect to hear the rich tone, jazz inflected with not only the influences of Fats Waller or McCoy Tyner, but also with a soulful element that comes from church roots. But some of the tunes that float through the room may harken back to another part of the listener's past. The music is jazz, but the familiar memories ...
Continue ReadingCyrus Chestnut: Cyrus Plays Elvis
by J Hunter
"Elvis isn't dead until we say he's dead! That was the defiant proclamation on a billboard advertising a Bay Area Oldies station. An immediate reaction would be: “Which Elvis are we talking about? Fat Elvis? Thin Elvis? Hollywood Elvis? Vegas Elvis? With Cyrus Plays Elvis, pianist Cyrus Chestnut has added a new category to that list: Jazz Elvis.
The concept isn't all that far-fetched: Presley's early recordings came from the same country-blues space Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash called ...
Continue ReadingCyrus Chestnut: Cyrus plays Elvis
by Francis Lo Kee
Certainly a concept designed to push peoples' buttons, the fact is that if you don't know Elvis Presley's music, this CD doesn't sound radically different from a lot of soul jazz recordings from Blue Note in the 1960s. One of the big differences between rock and jazz is harmony: while jazz, partially built on the standards of the Great American Songbook, loves shifting, chromatic voice-leading, rock tends to be harmonically more static, either using other qualities to build and release ...
Continue ReadingCyrus Chestnut: Genuine Chestnut
by Woodrow Wilkins
One hardly thinks of age six as the start of a career in anything, but that's when pianist Cyrus Chestnut began his. As was the case with many musicians and singers, the church was his first gig. He played at Mount Calvary Baptist in Baltimore, and within three years, he was studying classical music at the Peabody Institute. Over the years, a variety of training and experiences led him to jazz. He worked alongside some modern jazz heavyweights like Terence ...
Continue ReadingCyrus Chestnut: Genuine Chestnut
by AAJ Italy Staff
Genuine Chestnut non rende giustizia alla ragguardevole cifra artistica di Cyrus Chestnut, pianista e compositore di talento. Alcuni suoi dischi per la Evidence e l’Atlantic ne avevano messo in luce l’intrigante progettualità musicale, volta ad integrare l’idioma delle origini del jazz all’interno di un fraseggio d’ascendenza post-bop. Su questo disco tale peculiarità fortemente distintiva del pianista statunitense è stata edulcorata, per essere messa al servizio di un calderone in cui la matrice più autenticamente afroamericana viene sovrapposta a sonorità più ...
Continue ReadingCyrus Chestnut: Genuine Chestnut
by Joel Roberts
Cyrus Chestnut has always brought a palpable sense of joy to his music-making. Since gaining notoriety with the young lions of the '80s, his gospel-rooted approach has earned him a reputation as one of the most reliably versatile pianists on the mainstream scene. Genuine Chestnut is a mixed bag, though. While there's plenty of fine playing here from the 42-year-old leader and his trio, along with guests Steve Kroon (percussion) and Russell Malone (guitar), the music only ...
Continue ReadingCyrus Chestnut: You Are My Sunshine
by AAJ Staff
Tough times make simple music cathartic, and Cyrus Chestnut’s You Are My Sunshine combines tradition with innovation to attractively articulate this 70-minute collection of modern jazz trio music. Chestnut clearly doesn’t expect this record to change your life, but it does successfully brighten our mood.
The record’s opening, “God Smiled On Me,” clearly establishes the comfort of acoustic subtlety within a groove that nicely unites Chestnut with band mates Michael Hawkins on bass and Neal Smith on drums. The pianist ...
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