Tickets $20 available at the door or Eventbrite

Doors 7.30PM Show 8.00PM

Lester is a “musician’s musician” and the kind of piano player that jazz fans love to discover: a quietly brilliant mind that has been building his own unique voice and sound for decades, just barely outside the jazz spotlight. Based in Yonkers, New York, he’s a mostly unheralded name in jazz, having spent the past 30 years raising a family and teaching piano lessons in his hometown. But his history bears out some fascinating details. For one, he was mentored by the late piano virtuoso Sal Mosca, who himself was a longtime accompanist for the saxophonist Lee Konitz.

More importantly, both Mosca and Lester belong to the family tree of jazz pianists connected to Lennie Tristano, who is said to have planted the seeds for free jazz, improvising over spontaneous chord structures nearly a decade before Ornette Coleman’s revolutionary debut. As was certainly the case with his mentors, Lester’s playing is gentle and probing, yet solid enough to carry strong melodic lines. It’s subtly transportive. Listening to it, you’ll find yourself getting swept away without even realizing you’re moving.