Bill Charlap Trio

WRITTEN IN THE STARS

(Blue Note)

Pianist Charlap plays all standards -- which on the face of it is a concession to the status quo. But on the other -- just listen to this guy. He opens with some Bill Evans-impressionist chords, a phrase of tumbling Monk whole tones followed by equally Monkish broken chords, then the low-register opening of Cole Porter's "In the Still of the Night" and then a high-end run into the bridge. There's variety like this in each of the CD's 11 tracks, but it never sounds merely showy. Charlap's been credited with thinking like a singer, but no one would sing the lyrics to these songs with his rubato attack. And yet every move he makes reinforces the overall melody and shape of the song.

Maybe that's because he never leaves the original melody far behind -- it's always there in his recurring conversational paraphrases. Maybe it's his voice leading -- the harmonic underpinning of those long arcs of song is so sure that he can leave a note hanging indefinitely without letting the tensile strength of the composition go slack. And maybe it's the way his trio mates -- bassist Peter Washington and his brother, drummer Kenny -- stay with him. (Listen to the way Peter adds another finger to Charlap's left hand in "Blue Skies.") Or maybe it's Charlap's deathless lyricism -- the brooding urbanity of Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin's "The Man that Got Away," the city night-sky romanticism of the Arlen/Leo Robin title track.

-- Jon Garelick

(The Bill Charlap Trio, with Peter Washington and drummer Dennis Mackrel, play Scullers next Thursday, January 25. Call 562-4111.)