Hearing Bill Charlap in the flesh is a great experience. He seems to be doing very little but what pours from his fingers captures the imagination and draws the audience in.

He’s made plenty of albums in his long career, but the opening number here (the title track, written by Kenny Barron) gets as close to the live experience as any of them. The audience whoops, cheers and claps after his opening solo, before Peter Washington’s urbane bass takes over, perfectly demonstrates his skill, and also shows the excellent understanding between these three long-established trio partners.

He can take a solo introduction and tantalise us with where he’s going, so that the first minute of ‘All The Things You Are’ visits various fragments of the piece before settling into a swinging trio groove. He must have played the seven standards here hundreds of times, but that familiarity hasn’t bred contempt, rather it shows a stable base for pianistic and ensemble adventure.

The LP and CD versions of the album are arranged like a live set, so there’s a train of continuous thought running through the sequence. The record ends, in a low key, introspective way, on ‘Ghost of a Chance’, which is something I’ve heard Bill do live, following as it does a daringly rapid version of ‘The Man I Love’, and calming the audience before (in this case) they head out into 7th Avenue on the way home.

A great pianist on fine form, with one of the best trios in the business.