Word: pianist
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...such Broadway musicals as Sweet Charity and City of Angels; of heart failure; in New York City. His jazzy songs, from Hey, Look Me Over to Big Spender, became hits for singers like Tony Bennett and Peggy Lee and epitomized Broadway songwriting at its most likably brash. A fluent pianist, he performed a cabaret act in New York City as recently as last month...
MUSIC: Jazz pianist Bill Charlap has finished paying his dues...
...Jazz pianist Bill Charlap approaches a song the way a lover approaches his beloved. He wants to know its origins, its shape, its moods. He wants to view it from every angle--melody, harmony, lyrics, verse. He even wants to hear about its romantic history--what other improvisers have done with it. When he sits down to play, the result is an embrace, an act of possession. The tune rises, falls, disappears and resurfaces in new forms as Charlap ranges over the keyboard with nimble, crisply swinging lines, subtly layered textures, dense chords and spiky interjections. But no matter...
Hers may be the only overt influence on his work. It's hard to hear echoes of anyone else in his playing. "There are a lot of pianists in his background--Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, Bud Powell, George Shearing," says pianist Dick Hyman, a family friend and mentor. "Perhaps Bill's greatest talent is that he's been able to put all these things together and make something personal and special out of them...
...traditional dinner music,” as Hough describes it, began by chance two weeks ago when a group of friends nudged the 15-year veteran pianist toward the keys, said Robert M. Koenig ’06, chair of the Currier House Committee...