By Ed Enright | Published August 2024
The Village Vanguard in New York has always been hallowed ground for Bill Charlap, ever since the pianist was just a kid knocking around Greenwich Village at night and eavesdropping on jazz clubs. So it makes perfect sense that his longstanding trio with bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny Washington would consistently play at the top of their game inside the venerated Greenwich Village venue, which has for years been hosting the trio for an annual two-week residency. Their natural affinity for the club was documented once previously on the trio’s 2007 Blue Note album Live At The Village Vanguard. The group’s latest release, And Then Again, transports the listener back to the Vanguard during a much more recent Saturday evening performance where Charlap and trio find themselves truly in their element and at the epitome of their creative powers. In its 27-year existence, the group has evolved to levels of seamless interaction and extrasensory communication exhibited only in the best of the best ensembles in jazz history. In the group’s discography, a micro-canon of piano-trio language and repertoire, And Then Again hits as especially open and free, seemingly leading away from an outsize book of hundreds of tunes and arrangements and more toward a strategy of inspired intuitiveness. Spontaneous interplay and interpretive flow are the takeaway on this set of exquisitely executed bebop and ballads, which includes jazz standards by Thelonious Monk, Dave Brubeck and Kenny Barron as well as songbook chestnuts like “All The Things You Are,” “Darn That Dream” and “The Man I Love.” And Then Again is available for pre-order now on limited-edition Blue Note Store exclusive color vinyl, black vinyl, CD and digital download. Charlap and his trio return to the Vanguard for a two-week run Sept. 3–8 and Sept. 10–15 as the pianist’s summer tour dates continue into the fall. Other concerts of note on his schedule include appearances with Dee Dee Bridgewater and Nicholas Payton at the John Coltrane Jazz Festival in High Point, North Carolina, on Sept. 1 and at SFJAZZ in San Francisco on Sept. 28–29; an Oct. 22–26 run with Ron Carter at Birdland in New York; and solo shows at Dizzy’s Club @ Jazz at Lincoln Center Nov. 8–10.
