Quarantine Concert Series_#145: Cyrus Chestnut & Charlotte Doreen Small
Cyrus Chestnut and Charlotte Doreen Small
A Week of Giving Thanks
Each concert this week benefits a charity of the artists' choosing!
Their first Baltimore performance as husband and wife!
Born in 1963 in Baltimore, jazz pianist Cyrus Chestnut grew up in a home filled with the sounds of gospel music that his church-going parents played, along with jazz records by artists such as Thelonius Monk and Jimmy Smith. To this day, Chestnut’s ties to gospel music remain constant.
After graduating from Berklee College of Music in Boston, Chestnut worked with jazz vocalist Jon Hendricks, trumpeter Terrence Blanchard, and saxophonist Donald before joining jazz legend Wynton Marsalis. Chestnut’s recordings include Dark Before the Dawn (1994), which debuted in the sixth spot on the Billboard jazz charts; Earth Stories (1995), for which he composed nine of the CD’s eleven tracks; a solo piano album, Blessed Quietness: Collection of Hymns, Spirituals, and Carols (1996); Cyrus Chestnut (1998); Soul Food (2001), a blend of jazz, classical, gospel, and R&B; and You Are My Sunshine (2003).
The New York Daily News once heralded Chestnut as the rightful heir to Bud Powell, Art Tatum, and Erroll Garner. Chestnut continually tours with his trio, playing at jazz festivals around the world, as well as clubs and concert halls. His leadership and prowess as a soloist have also led him to be first on the list for the piano chair in many big bands including the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and the Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band.
Charlotte Small has performed on some of the best-known stages, including Madison Square Garden, The Apollo Theater, Lincoln Center and more at home and abroad. In the corporate world, Small performs for the Bloomberg Financial Organization, American Express, MetLife, Pepsi, The American Heart Association, MasterCard and many more, and was chosen to select the special musical pieces, arrange, conduct and perform as the featured artist for the “John F. Kennedy Jr., Memorial Service,” many of the “Sept 11th Tributes” including Tributes to the NYC Fire Fighters, and others. Small has also performed on the Off-Broadway stage in the shows: Rock-a-my-Soul, Sweet Blessings, Going Back Home and Sweet Dreams. Small has also performed and appeared with: Neil Diamond, Elizabeth Taylor, Mona Lisa, Ruff Endz, Barbara Tucker, Ultra Nate, Terry Hunter, Kenny Dope Gonzales, and Grammy Award winners “Louie Vega” and “Speech,” from Arrested Development and Sony’s new Rock Sensation, Teddy Geiger. Small’s debut album More in out on Midnite Enterprises.
Streaming cost is $15 -- $5 will go to the Maryland Food Bank
https://mdfoodbank.org/