Pianist fuses gospel and jazz in Sanctified Swing

CYRUS CHESTNUT

"Everybody has the Blues. Everybody longs for meaning. Everybody needs to love and be loved. Everybody needs to clap hands and be happy. Everybody longs for faith. In music, especially this broad category called jazz, there is a stepping stone towards all of these."

-- From The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s "Humanity and the Importance of Jazz" at the opening of the Berlin Jazz Festival, 1964

Provided

Pianist Cyrus Chestnut

Jazz pianist Cyrus Chestnut is steeped in Southern traditions. While he was born in Baltimore, Md., both his parents hail from Sumter, and they took a solid grounding in Christian spirituality with them when they moved north.

As his professional career has evolved, Chestnut has come to the point where he feels freer to lend the gospel music traditions to his chosen mode of expression, jazz.

He and his band will perform a program called Sanctified Swing on Thursday as part of this year's Spoleto Festival USA's Wachovia Jazz Series.

This reporter will conduct a public conversation with Chestnut today at 5 p.m. at the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston as part of the festival's Artist Talk series.

Chestnut said in a telephone interview Monday, "Everything that you experience goes into the makeup of who you are," referring to his church upbringing.

He said of Sanctified Swing, "It's kind of like a jazz-goes-to-church concept in that it's an attempt to really fuse the gospel traditions with the jazz traditions.

"They both have origins in the blues. That's an underlying foundation. It's like taking a lot of the pieces that come out of the church and arranging them in the jazz format."

Chestnut appears to be at the vanguard of a trend.

"A lot of the players involved have grown up in the church," he said.

"And I think everyone is becoming less afraid to explore their roots. It's becoming OK to express that tradition."

The program Thursday will consist of hymns, some gospel songs and spirituals, Chestnut said.

He's been working on this particular program for about two years. He recently performed it at the Kennedy Center in Washington. It debuted at Columbia University. That's where Wachovia Jazz Series producer Michael Grofsorean scouted Chestnut.

"Church was a big part of the life of the people who created jazz and it is a big part of jazz," Grofsorean said. It's always there in some manner. This remains true today. He (Chestnut) literally grew up playing organ in his church in Baltimore. He's got about a dozen CD's and there's always gospel music in them, not just the feel."

Grofsorean said Chestnut will play the Hammond B3 organ, an old-school instrument that was an anchor of jazz in its mid-20th century heyday. When played properly, it has a lush, soul-stirring sound.

Chestnut will be working with his regular sidemen, bassist Dezron Douglas and drummer Neal Smith. Special guests for this show are James Carter on saxophone, vocalist Carla Cook and trumpeter Curtis Taylor.

"He will use the guests in diverse ways," Grofsorean said of Chesnut.

"He'll probably feature Carla and James as band leaders in their own right and will probably have different combinations of musicians."