A Pianist Ready for Battle

Jazz-blues-gospel pianist Cyrus Chestnut was already a musician in motion when he stepped into a New York studio in 1994 with superstar soprano Kathleen Battle to make her album “So Many Stars.”

By then he had performed with jazz luminaries such as singers Jon Hendricks and Betty Carter and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and had recorded five solo albums.

Still, Chestnut found something extraordinary about working with Battle, whom he backs tonight in Cerritos, and her guests on the Sony Classical collection of ballads, gospel tunes, Brazilian numbers, lullabies from around the world and more.

“I remember sitting there at this beautiful, 9-foot Hamburg Steinway grand piano, and in the studio were [saxophonists] Grover Washington Jr., Antonio Hart and James Carter, [guitarist] Romero Lubambo, [vibraphonist] Joe Locke,” Chestnut said. “Before that, I had never done any session on such a high order. If there was such a thing as ‘You have arrived,’ this was it.”

Nonetheless, Chestnut was a little apprehensive, having heard stories about Battle being difficult. But when they began to work, “everything was the opposite of what I’d heard,” said the pianist, 32, reached by phone at his home in the Bronx. “Kathleen is, on the inside and the outside, a gem of a human being. And a masterful musician. Like Betty Carter, she knows what she wants and she demands it. For me, that was like, ‘Hey, no problem.’ ”

The chemistry that the affable pianist and Battle had making “So Many Stars” has led to other collaborations. He was on Battle’s tour of the East and Midwest last year, where they performed spirituals and music by Duke Ellington. He also took part in a concert version of “So Many Stars” that kicked off this season’s Jazz at Lincoln Center series in New York.

Tonight at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, Chestnut joins Carter, Lubambo, bassist Christian McBride and percussionist Cyro Baptista in supporting Battle for “Night of ‘So Many Stars,’ ” another version of that show.

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For this evening’s performance, Chestnut will serve as Battle’s accompanist and musical director. Though the singer and pianist will use Robert Sadin’s arrangements from the album, they’ve crafted the numbers--among them “Fais Do Do,” a traditional Creole lullaby, and “Azulao,” a Brazilian piece whose title means “bluebird” in Portuguese--to their liking.

Make that to Battle’s liking.

“Her concerns are top priority,” Chestnut said. “I simply listen to those concerns and put the numbers together.”

Chestnut, whose background is in gospel, classical, R&B; and jazz, in that order, did have substantial input on a medley of Christmas carols that Battle wanted to do.

“For example, with the first verse of ‘We Three Kings,’ I did it as it is usually, in three-four [waltz] time,” he said. “But for the second part I went into this lowdown and dirty, gutbucket four-quarter swing. I just did it on the fly, and she jumped up, very excited. She really liked it, so it stuck.”

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The Cerritos performance kicks off a four-concert mini-tour with other stops in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., Ann Arbor, Mich., and Columbus, Ohio. Chestnut plans to play one unaccompanied piano piece from his latest album, “Blessed Quietness,” a collection of such traditional holiday and gospel songs as “We Three Kings,” “Silent Night” and “Amazing Grace.”

The album harks back to Chestnut’s first musical memories: hearing his father play gospel piano at home. The recording also reveals that he took seriously advice he got from singer Carter.

“She insisted that I not accept the status quo, not do what everybody else does,” he said. “So on the album, I do some numbers that might seem a little bit radical, like playing ‘Jesus Loves Me’ with an influence of stride piano. But if you listen to early gospel, what I’m doing is not that foreign. I’m just trying to play from my heart, as I always do, and put a smile on people’s faces.”

A 1985 graduate of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Baltimore-native Chestnut is one of the acclaimed young lions of jazz, trying to establish himself as a leader in a highly competitive scene.

Again he recalls Carter’s words: “When I left her band in October 1993, she told me, ‘Hey, baby, it’s cold out there’ ” in the jazz world, he said. “She’s right. It is cold, but that’s OK. I wear a heavy coat.”

* Cyrus Chestnut appears with Kathleen Battle tonight for “Night of ‘So Many Stars’ ” at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive. 8 p.m. $35-$65. (800) 300-4345.