The Long Way Home Charles Chen

• 1 Laverne Walk 05:45
• 2 You Turned The Tables On Me 05:14
• 3 Dream Dancing 04:37
• 4 Squatty Roo 03:00
• 5 On The Alamo 05:45
• 6 You Send Me 04:18
• 7 Prelude to a Kiss - I Got It Bad - Sophisticated Lady 07:16
• 8 Yours Is My Heart Alone 04:19
• 9 Poor Butterfly 05:23
• 10 Bill Crow: Teddy Wilson (48 kHz) 00:34
• 11 Bill Crow: Art Tatum, Bud Powell (48 kHz) 01:10
• 12 Bill Crow: Norman Granz, Picasso (48 kHz) 00:41
• 13 Bill Crow: Paul Chambers, Curtis Fuller, Miles Davis (48 kHz) 00:59
• 14 Bill Crow: Charlie Parker (48 kHz) 01:51
• Total Runtime 50:52

Info for The Long Way Home

The Long Way Home is a jazz piano album recorded live in New York, featuring two of the most seasoned rhythm section players in the world: bassist Bill Crow (98) and drummer Steve Little (91), both still holding down a weekly residency at Smalls Jazz Club. Pianist Charles Chen and guitarist Félix Lemerle join them for a set of timeless standards and jazz classics — from Oscar Pettiford to Sam Cooke to Duke Ellington — before the album takes an unexpected turn: Bill and Steve sit down and tell their stories. Between them, they've played with Sam Cooke, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Art Tatum, Gerry Mulligan, and Duke Ellington himself. The Long Way Home is part concert, part road trip, part living history — a reminder that the best jazz musicians never really stop moving.

Charles Chen, piano
Félix Lemerle, guitar
Bill Crow, bass
Steve Little, drums

Recorded November 2025 at Bunker Studio
Engineered by Edwin Kenzo Huet and Alex Conroy
Mixed by Edwin Kenzo Huet
Mastered by Steve Fallone, Sterling Sound
Produced by Charles Chen
Executive Producer: Charles Chen & Cory Weeds

Charles Chen
is a San Francisco Bay Area pianist who performed or recorded with notable musicians such as Randy Brecker, Billy Drummond, Bob Sheppard, Roy McCurdy, Adam Nussbaum, Mike Richmond, Ralph Moore, Peter Washington, and Kenny Washington. He has played at Yoshi's, San Jose Jazz Festival, and Freight and Salvage. In 2019, he won first place at the Jazz Search West competition. Charles leads a trio and has performed internationally in Taiwan, Singapore and Japan. His debut album, Charles, Play!, was featured as one of the Best Albums of 2024 in Downbeat Magazine.

Charles is also a passionate educator and his students have gone to the best music schools in the nation (Juilliard, MSM, Berklee, NEC) and won a variety of awards (YoungArts distinctions, all-state band placements, and first place for arranging and performance in the Charles Mingus competition).

He serves as the historian of the South Bay Traditional Jazz Society. He is also an admin to Jazzcord, a popular jazz discord community with over 7000 members, where he writes historical essays and album reviews regularly.

This album contains no booklet.