Cyrus Chestnut concerts are generous aural buffets.
With an unfaltering left hand teasing out wondrous harmonies and a mercurial right hand painting pretty improvised melodies, the Baltimore-born maestro draws from a near bottomless well of genres and styles – Black Spirituals, Boogie-Woogie, the Blues, R&B, the occasional Bach fugue or Chopin prelude, and, of course, endless, toe-tapping Swing.
Patrons who took in Cyrus’ London Jazz Festival trio date on Tuesday evening at Soul Mama – London’s newest jazz venue in East Village, Stratford – did not come away disappointed. Furthermore, as first time visitors to Soul Mama, my son Sultan and I were impressed by the hospitable staff, and by all that Adetokumbo, aka, ‘T’ has created. The food is amazing. Their jerked chicken wings: yummy indeed!
Joined by resourceful acoustic bassist, Giorgos Antoniou, and the ingenious Catalonian drummer Esteve Pi, the trio started off their first set with the up-tempo Chestnut original, ‘Shizzle Shake’, peppered by Pi’s polyrhythmic approach – recalling the way Elvin Jones accompanied McCoy Tyner in the John Coltrane Quartet.
Chestnut is a piano prodigy with deep roots. He grew up playing Sunday services at Baltimore’s Mount Calvary Baptist Church at an early age, progressing to study European classical repertoire at the prestigious Peabody Conservatory and the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he graduated in 1985 with a degree in composition and arranging.
Indeed, his distinctive arranging and composing nous has seen him refine and fine-tune the piano-led jazz trio format, following in the footsteps of Nat ‘King’ Cole, Hampton Hawes, Ahmad Jamal, Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett and Oscar Peterson, among others.
Chestnut’s inspired reinterpretation of Lionel Richie’s ‘Hello’ struck an appreciative chord with his enraptured audience.
More than just a stab at pop music relevance, it demonstrated how a gossamer light touch and tender jazz voicing can make a way for a new entry into the jazz standard cannon.
Alongside compositions which showcased the influence of music encountered on his travels in India and Japan such as ‘Shantee’ and ‘Nippon Soul Connection’ respectively, his readings of Monk’s ‘Ask Me Now’ and Jimmy Van Heusen and Eddie De Lange’s ‘Darn That Dream’ were executed with masterly accomplishment.
Chestnut brought out the full power of the Steinway Grand piano as if it was a full orchestra comprising various strings and horns. He made the lower range of the instrument roar and tinkled the upper registers of the instrument with a feather touch.
As Chestnut mentioned while introducing tunes, typifying the essence of live jazz music:
“You are listening to an original performance, designed for your ears only. This music will never be played the same way for anyone else.”
Other memorable tunes receiving the ‘for-your-ears-only’ treatment were Duke Jordan’s Latin-flavoured ‘No Problem’, Charlie Parker’s ‘Yardbird Suite’, Johnny Green’s ‘Body and Soul’, Patty and Mildred Hill’s ‘Happy Birthday’ and Duke Ellington’s ‘In A Sentimental Mood’.
