Highlights in Jazz: Bill Charlap Trio + Living Jazz Legends

Jack Kleinsinger's “Highlights in Jazz, ” New York's longest running jazz series, announced their 33rd Anniversary concert featuring the Bill Charlap Trio and the Living Jazz Legends: Slide Hampton, and Jimmy Heath. The combination of the Bill Charlap Trio along with the Living Jazz Legend promises to be a true jazz happening.

Since his emergence in the late '80s pianist Bill Charlap has firmly established himself as one of the premier performers on the jazz scene today. Born into a musical family in New York City (his father, Moose Charlap, was a Broadway composer and songwriter and his mother, Sandy Stewart, a popular song singer who performed with Benny Goodman) Mr. Charlap who began playing the piano at a very young age was fully thrust into the jazz world in the late '80s. He joined baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan's quintet in 1994 was enlisted by alto saxophonist Phil Woods for his band. Mr. Charlap was the musical director of the hit film Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. In 1996 he began playing with his trio of bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny Washington. The group has recorded four CDs for the Criss Cross and Blue Note labels for which his 2004 Blue Note release Somewhere: The Songs of Leonard Bernstein received a Grammy nomination. He received the Pianist of the Year Jazz Award in 2003 from the Jazz Journalists Association and was named outstanding jazz soloist by Manhattan's Night Life Awards in 2003 and 2004.

Each season Highlights in Jazz presents Living Jazz Legends who have graced the Highlights in Jazz stage many times and have been honorees at past Highlights in Jazz concerts.

Slide Hampton is a masterly arranger, composer and gifted (left- handed) trombone player. His career is among the most distinguished in jazz having appeared on numerous recordings and in the bands of Lloyd Price, Lionel Hampton, Woody Herman, Maynard Ferguson and his own World of Trombones.

Jimmy Heath has long been recognized as a brilliant instrumentalist and a magnificent composer and arranger. During his career, he has performed on more than 100 recordings including seven with The Heath Brothers and twelve as a leader and has written more than 125 compositions, many of which have become jazz standards and have been recorded by Art Farmer, Cannonball Adderley, Clark Terry, Chet Baker, Miles Davis, James Moody, Milt Jackson, Ahmad Jamal, Ray Charles, Dizzy Gillespie, J.J Johnson and Dexter Gordon.

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