Slope Music, Park Slope Brooklyn

Biography

Charles Sibirsky has freelanced as a Jazz pianist in the New York City area for over 30 years. There are many venues for jazz in the metropolitan area and he has played as a solo artist or in a combo setting at Birdland, One Fifth Avenue, Cornelia Street Café, Barbes,The Coach Inn, The Angry Squire, Café Royale, The Waterfront, The Iron Horse Pub, The Brown derby, Griff’s Seafood Plaza, Citylights, The Grand Prospect Hall, Cleopatra’s Needle, La Belle Epoque, The Duplex, and The Water’s Edge, just to namea few. He also accepts booking for parties. The mood he creates at these celebrations sets a special mood at these affairs.

Playing at weddings was Charles’ first foray into the world of “music for hire.” He was just 17 when he embarked on his career as a professional musician. He played in trio and quartet settings in the Catskill Mountains of New York. He majored in music at Brooklyn College and and began his teaching career at Academy Music Studios in Brooklyn. That teaching position led to an introduction to the legendary pianist Sal Mosca. Sal accepted Charles as a student. For 24 years Charles made the weekly trek up to Mount Vernon to study with this wonderful jazz pianist, who remains one of the leading proponents of the Lennie Tristano School.

The concert setting has provided opportunity for Charles to share his original music and improvisation on standards. He has given concerts at the Henry Street Settlement House, The Riverdale Country School(where he taught for six years), and The Brooklyn Academy of Music. He has appeared several times at the Bethlehem Music Festival. He has played numerous library concerts and several concerts at The Old First Reformed Church for the benefit of City Harvest, an organiaztion that provides food for the homeless.

His compositions have been recorded by Elaine Comparone and have been performed at Merkin Hall in New York City and on tour through various European venues.

Charles lives in Brooklyn where as the founder and director of Slope Music he continues to teach jazz. Many of Charles’ students have gone on to establish music careers. It is a special joy for Charles’ to go out to clubs to hear his own students perform.

His first recording as a leader, “Just Jazz, Just Two” (Zinnia Records, 1995), with Murray Wall on bass, established that “Sibirsky clearly has his own voice,” according to David Dupont’s review in Cadence. “His scholarship marks the work here – the long, snaky lines, the judicious use of block chords, a strong left hand, the usual suspects as vehicles for improvisaion, and a couple of well-turned, Tristano-influenced originals. … He does not overwhelm you, but seduces you.”

Charles’s recording, “The BQE” (Zinnia Records, 2000), with Drori Mondlak on drums, and John DeCesare on bass, highlights his interplay with vibraphonist Mark Josefsberg. The compositions are “ranging from dreamily slow to head-long fast, changing tempos and moods at a moment’s notice,” raves reviewer Nils Jacobson and goes on: “These two players seem to have a near-magical ability to predict each other’s moves and go with them, not knowing in advance exactly where they will lead.”

Charles teamed up with his longtime student, vocalist Christiana Drapkin, to record her second CD, “Songs About You” on IANA Records, 2003. The recording highlights not only his superb solo playing and accompanying skills, but features four original compositions. The ballad, “Songs About You”, which gives the CD its title, is almost impressionistic in its harmonic development and treatment. Charles’s bossa nova, “Open Your Heart”, with added guitar playing by John Merrill, has been called “one of the high points of the session” by Michael P. Gladstone in his review in All About Jazz. The bebop line “Formation” carries on the Tristano tradition, while the witty cabaret number, “Cholesterol Blues” is a hit with live audiences.

His latest album, “Jazzman’s Serenade”, also on the Zinnia Label, is a quartet with Charley Krachy on Tenor, Ed Fuqua on bass and Pete Scattaretico on drums has some originals, some standards some free music and a Bird tune called Quasimoto. It’s release in 2005, was celebrated at Birdland.

All of Charles’s playing is not only deeply musical, but it demonstrates the empathy between him and his fellow-players. Lovers of jazz piano should not pass this up.

Please browse his website at www.slopemusic.com to hear soundclips from his cds, read reviews, check out his repetoire list, and investigate his performance itinerary.