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Erik Charlston

Jazz vibraphonist Erik Charlston, a native of Chicago, has a diverse career centered in New York, where he currently leads his JazzBrasil sextet. Charlston has also performed and recorded with Wynton Marsalis, Fred Hersch, Steve Coleman, James Carter, Sam Rivers, Dave Brubeck, and Orlando Puntilla Rios, among others. He has performed with Sting, Billy Joel and Elton John at Carnegie Hall, and with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, he played with Metallica at Madison Square Garden. Alongside Bill Frisell, Gil Goldstein, Marty Ehrlich and Greg Cohen, he has interpreted the music of the classic film composer Bernard Herrmann in London with the BBC Symphony, in France with the Orchestre National de Lyon and most recently with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

In New York, Erik performs regularly with the New York Philharmonic, with Encores at City Center, and on film soundtracks from Disney’s “Aladdin” to the recent ”Julie and Julia” and Coen brothers’ “True Grit.” A frequent performer on Broadway in “Hair” and “The Lion King,” he has also played extensively with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, as well as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Moscow’s Moiseyev Dance Company, the Radio City Music Hall Orchestra and as soloist on Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion.” Recording credits include radio, television, films, and record labels such as Sony, Gramavision, Telarc, EMI, Newport Classics, Nonesuch, and French Antilles.

Outside New York, he has performed chamber music throughout Europe and Japan, and with the New York Philharmonic, has toured extensively throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia. He is currently co-chair of the percussion department at the Manhattan School of Music

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New York Beat

Erik Charlston at Cafe Wha

Read "Erik Charlston at Cafe Wha" reviewed by Nick Catalano


Erik Charlston and JazzBrasil, a sextet from his CD Essentially Hermeto (Sunnyside) came to Café Wha for a one set offering of their music on Sunday June 28. Charlston has gained wide attention for his knowledge and performances of the music of Hermeto Pascoal. This illustrious composer/ musician/producer from Lagoa da Canoa, Alagoas, whose genius has been woefully neglected by American jazz writers, stands at the very top rung of Brazilian music and, through the years, the few times that ...

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Album Review

Erik Charlston JazzBrasil: Essentially Hermeto

Read "Essentially Hermeto" reviewed by Matt Cibula


Erik Charlston is not shy about revealing his main influence. Not only did he title this album Essentially Hermeto after the Brazilian multi-instrumentalist/composer/mystic Hermeto Pascoal, he even starts the first track with the kind of rustling ambient sound that Pascoal loves so much. Unlike Pascoal himself, who might use that sound for a few minutes or an entire track, Charlston moves pretty quickly into “Vale de Ribeira"--like most of the selections on the album, a Hermeto Pascoal song. A straightforward ...

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Album Review

Erik Charlston JazzBrasil: Essentially Hermeto

Read "Essentially Hermeto" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose


No musical expedition to Brazil can be complete without a reverent doffing of the proverbial hat as the traveling musicians make an essential stop at Barrio Jabour, the place where the great Hermeto Pascoal lives. This is what vibraphonist and marimba artist Erik Charlston did. Fortuitously, he captured the resident and hovering spirits in the splendid Essentially Hermeto. This is an album of songs resplendent in the feelings of unbridled alegria; of joy, as they say, no matter where in ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Essentially Hermeto

Sunnyside Records
2012

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JazzBrasil

Sunnyside Records
2012

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Essentially Hermeto

Sunnyside Records
2011

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Viva o Rio de Janeiro

From: Essentially Hermeto
By Erik Charlston

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