DAVID BENOIT’S CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS
DAVID BENOIT’S CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS
David Benoit was bitten by the jazz bug after watching a Charlie Brown special on television and listening to the music of Vince Guaraldi in 1965. “I was already a fan of the comic strip,” he says, “but when I heard that jazz piano trio, that was the defining moment when I decided that I wanted to play like Vince Guaraldi.”
For four decades, the GRAMMY®-nominated pianist/composer/ arranger David Benoit has reigned supreme as one the founding fathers of Contemporary Jazz. He has received three GRAMMY® nominations in the categories of Best Contemporary Jazz Performance for “Every Step of the Way” (1989), Best Large Ensemble Performance for GRP All-Star Big Band (1996), and Best Instrumental Composition for “Dad’s Room,” the latter from the album Professional Dreamer (2000) and in 2010, David Benoit received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Smooth Jazz Awards. He has also worked with an impressive potpourri of musicians including the Rippingtons, Emily Remler, the late Alphonse Mouzon, Dave Koz, Faith Hill, David Sanborn, CeCe Winans, Keiko Matsui, Hiroshima and Brian McKnight.
“Benoit tickles those keys and this is a definite masterclass on how to play the piano with feeling.” – The Jazz World