Pianist and composer Charles Chen presents Building Characters, an album that merges ideas of fictional icons with jazz legends to paint unique musical portraits, out May 16, 2025 via Cellar Music Group

Pianist and composer Charles Chen, in looking to the heroes of jazz, past and present, found himself drawing parallels to the heroes contained elsewhere, drawing on fiction, mythology, and anime. “We listen to musicians across their lifetimes, following how their musical abilities crescendo or diminish,” Chen says. “We hope, by remembering them and passing along their tales, we can understand the geniuses behind the music. These stories keep the music alive.” Using the mediums of original compositions and arrangements, Chen presents this poignant ideation in the form of Building Characters, a powerhouse second album, featuring the likes of Randy Brecker (trumpet), Bob Sheppard and Lawrence Feldman (tenor saxophones), Mike Richmond (bass), and Adam Nussbaum (drums), releasing May 16th, 2025 on Cellar Music Group.

Some last minute heroics saved this recording session. “I was supposed to have Bob Malach on the session,” Charles says. “But two nights before, he told me he couldn’t make it. He was going to the ER because he practiced so much he got a hernia. Luckily, I was already working on another project in the same recording studio with Bob Sheppard the day before. Shep helped me workshop the charts months ago so he was already familiar with it all, so he agreed to help at the last minute. Shep basically swooped in and saved this album.”

The idea of the “character piece” is nothing new to music tradition, and has been done in Western Classical music for centuries, and famously within jazz history by individuals such as Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus. In Building Characters, Chen takes this musical tradition a step further by evoking a musician and a fictional character on every track, highlighting the sonic fingerprints of the musician and conveying the essence of the fictional character.

The album opens with “Kismet,” a track whose title is an ode to the alias of a collaborator and friend whom Chen met online on a Jazz Piano server of Discord. Chen and ‘Kismet’ quickly bonded over similar humor and a shared love for “heartbreakingly gorgeous ballads.” The track “Kismet” stands out as a slow, pop-like ballad that is notable in that, while orchestrated horns are present, the only soloist on the track is the piano, akin to the stylings of Brad Mehldau and Keith Jarrett. The ending of this piece raises this further with a 3-horn brass chorale and final band punctuation to tie it all together. 

“As a kid, I was totally absorbed in Asian legends of warring kingdoms and wanted to tap into that excitement in ‘Zhang Fei, Fierce Warrior,’” said Chen, who planned the release for this May, during Asian-American Heritage Month. Chen describes this Romance of the Three Kingdoms character as being “loyal and formidable” but “having a terrible temper.” To evoke this combination, Chen composed a fast, modal song influenced in equal parts by John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, and Elvin Jones. From Coltrane, Chen took the idea of wild intervallic playing, “almost like speaking in tongues.” From Tyner, he drew bitonality, quartal structures, and dramatic low drones. From Jones, phrasing across the bar lines, the quarter note triplet feel, and “banging African drums.”

The piece “If on a winter’s night a traveler” is inspired by the postmodern novel of the same title by Italo Calvino. The book, revolutionary in concept, features the reader themselves in the book. To encapsulate these larger-than-life ideas and postmodern leanings, Chen drew inspiration from the sounds of Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, particularly circa the Speak No Evil record. To further differentiate the lack of traditional direction of Calvino’s work, Chen plays with form on this track, making the end of the piece transport back to the middle.

The track “Colossus of Rhodes” features, as the name suggests, Chen on Fender Rhodes. To lean into this stylistic soundscape, Chen takes notes from Herbie Hancock for groove and chords, Pat Metheny for tone, and the Brecker Brothers for angular lines and uniquely memorable melody. Notable on this track is that bassist Mike Richmond plays acoustic bass, yet due to his strong and melodious tone still blends poignantly with the electric Fender Rhodes sound. Chen’s arrangement of “Alice and Wonderland” is an homage to the iconic sounds of Bill Evans and Chick Corea, using alternating lush chords and fleeting melodic lines, as well as bass playing that is itself a love letter to Scott LaFaro. 

The piece “Straw Hat” is inspired by the anime character Straw Hat Luffy, and musically uses a boogaloo in the style of Horace Silver to bring to life the character’s sense of adventure and daring. The Silver stylings can be clearly heard in the piece’s use of a clear and playful melody, loping bassline, and vibrant shout chorus at the end of the piece, as well as a piano break by Chen that channels the spirit of Horace Silver’s mirth and brilliance. The penultimate track on the album, “Soph, Aeon of Wisdom” derives its name from the deity in Gnostic cosmology. Featuring Randy Brecker on flugelhorn, the piece uses rising triads akin to a church choir. In “Stardust,” rather than leaning into the traditional ballad sound, Chen’s arrangement takes a more lighthearted approach, leaning into the lightness of Red Garland, Ahmad Jamal’s use of dynamics and range, and Gene Harris’s power and energy. The beginning and ending of the piece both mark the uniqueness of Chen’s arrangement: the track opens “with a bang,” and is followed by Bob Sheppard’s tenor saxophone verse statement over scintillating piano arpeggiations. The ending stands as a surprise and showcases Chen’s love for classical music. 

With Building Characters, Chen tells eight stories steeped in jazz history and human folklore, showcasing brilliance in creative vision, and mastery in execution. Steeping himself astutely in the breadths and depths of the jazz tradition, Chen’s ability as a storyteller and performer shine at the fore, augmented by a band whose personalities, profundity, and last-minute heroism speak volumes with every note they play in accord with him. 

Building Characters releases May 16th, 2025 via Cellar Music Group.

from https://lydialiebman.com