The Bill Charlap Trio: Art of Collaborative Leadership
The Bill Charlap Trio
“We all loved the same kinds of jazz records and have the same basic idea of how a trio should sound,” explained drummer and jazz educator Kenny Washington in early 2011 for a music feature on the Bill Charlap Trio in the New York Daily News. “And you certainly have to like each other—and we do.”
Back in the late 1970s, when I began my love affair—okay, okay, obsession—with jazz, Kenny was my first jazz mentor.
My Initiation into Jazz Community
My mom moved my sister and me away from a gang-ridden section of Brooklyn to Staten Island in 1976. As fate would have it, I lived one neighborhood away from the Washington family. I met his younger brother Reggie—an excellent professional acoustic and electric bassist—on a basketball court, duelin’ at the Stapleton Houses. I later learned that we shared an interest in jazz. Regg and I were even roommates in Harlem for a hot minute in the late ‘90s.
Reggie and Kenny’s dad, Charles Washington, was a big-time jazz advocate, aficionado and record-collector from way back. Growing up, music was all up, down, and around the boys and their sister Yvette, a violinist, conductor and music educator. I even remember Mr. Washington, whose legacy inspired the formation of the Staten Island Jazz Festival, bringing Jazzmobile to Staten Island and organizing jazz band workshops for youth.
Kenny Washington
By the time I met Kenny he’d already recorded with Betty Carter and Lee Konitz and was touring with the fiery, fast-gun, high-velocity tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin. Just five years older than me, Kenny was already playing with the cats!
When I mentioned that I’d be featured on alto sax performing Leonard Feather’s “I Remember Bird” for a Tottenville High School stage band concert my senior year, little did I know that Kenny would pay it forward by making a cassette tape for me, featuring renditions of the song by Phil Woods, Sonny Stitt, Frank Strozier, and Cannonball Adderley.
He was busy traveling and swingin’ around the globe, yet took the time to curate a tape just for me, a newbie to the music. Kenny’s gesture of support and generosity meant the world to me—it felt like an initiation into a jazz community that I barely knew existed.
The Art of the Jazz Rhythm Section
For over twenty years, Kenny has held down the drum chair in The Bill Charlap Trio. With electronification making volume more valued than subtlety and emotional range and nuance, this top acoustic rhythm section has fortunately maintained the high standards of collaborative leadership that make jazz such a special art form.
The quality of their chemistry has been documented on such dates as The Bill Charlap Trio: Live at the Village Vanguard, Somewhere: The Songs of Leonard Bernstein, Uptown, Downtown and the Grammy award-winning The Silver Lining: The Songs of Jerome Kern, featuring Tony Bennett. When asked to describe what makes their trio work so well, Charlap, out front on piano, focused on his bandmates Kenny and bassist Peter Washington.
“They’re great listeners and virtuosos on their instruments. They both give great attention to subtlety and detail. They know the history of the music yet sound like themselves,” he said. “They both are committed to making a beautiful and nuanced sound on their respective instruments. Yet with all the virtuosity and music at their command, they never put their egos in front of the music.”
According to Kenny, the same holds true for Bill. “As a leader, Bill’s democratic. I have free rein; he always hears me out.”
Similar to Bill Evans, Charlap has a soft touch and deep harmonic range. He is recognized particularly for his knowledge of the American songbook. Of the role of the piano in the trio, Charlap says, “you can play very polyphonically—more than one note at a time; I can play with ten fingers, and even more with the pedals. Or you can be very orchestral or like a singer. You can also be like a drummer.
“You can orchestrate but also play time, and also give counterpoint—another melody in the bass line, perhaps, against what Peter is doing. And then hook up with the drums in a way that they go hand-in-hand.”
On stage, their groove seems telepathic. But their relationships go beyond the music.
Family Vibe and the Bass-Drums Hookup
“The band is like a family, especially going on the road,” relates Kenny. “We know each others’ quirks. It’s getting stuck together in all those airports and going to dinner after the gigs. One time, Peter and I hadn’t seen each other for a long time, and we had a 13-hour trip to Japan. We took a few cat naps, but mostly we talked for about 10 hours, and before you knew it, we were there! All that adds to the music.”
The relationship between the drummer and bassist in a jazz trio is especially important. Indeed, that’s where the swing lives.
Charlap describes the bass-drums rapport as “hand-in-glove” and proclaims that “to make it really work, first and foremost the bass and the drums have to lean into each other to make it sound and feel like one.”
The two Washington’s aren’t related by blood but might as well be. “Peter’s my heart. He was the best man at my wedding. He’s seen me at my best and at my worst. Drummer Billy Higgins said to me that if you can meet just one bass player that you can hook up with, you’re lucky.
He’s a combination of all the great bassists: Jimmy Blanton, Israel Crosby, Paul Chambers, Oscar Pettiford, Ron Carter, Doug Watkins; he plays the right note at the right time and length. When we first played together, we automatically hooked-up.”
Bill agrees. “The beauty of his solos, the logic of his lines, the incredible depth of his harmonic knowledge. And his sound—he can just rock any band with it.”
No jazz band or jazz arrangement will sound great without an excellent drummer. Kenny’s “got that fire, that intensity, but also the sensitivity to the dynamics. There’s a great dynamic range to the way he orchestrates on the trap drum set, a uniquely American instrument,” comments Bill.
Shared Leadership Supports Ensemble Mindset
Yet no matter their individual roles and talents, each agrees that the ensemble, the group, is what’s most crucial. “All of our roles intertwine and change all the time,” Bill says. “I remember one time listening to Phil Woods. He was rehearsing a big band, and not everything was falling together, not clicking. He stopped the band and said: ‘Everybody’s gotta be a drummer.’
“That’s right. Everybody’s got to be rhythmically loose and rhythmically accurate at the same time. Everyone’s responsible for the bounce and the swing. Everybody’s also an orchestrator, an instant arranger of sorts. That’s another piece that makes this trio very satisfying for me, that Kenny and Peter both listen in that way, and think and contribute to our arrangements. When it all works right, it’s like Ellington said: floating on a turquoise cloud.”
For a marvelous example of the trio’s artistry, check out their rendition of “It’s Love.”