Hailed as one of the world's best living jazz pianists, Bill Charlap enchanted Friday's crowd at Regattabar. The Bill Charlap Trio, which includes Peter Washington on bass and Kenny Washington on drums, played straight-ahead jazz standards with the dark moodiness of Bill Evans combined with the outside phrases of Thelonious Monk. Leading the crowd though a wide range of emotions, the trio intertwined moving ballads with exciting up-tempo songs.Unlike at The Superpower's show in February at the same venue, this time Regattabar had no one under the age of 35, I being an exception. The favorable portion of the crowd consisted of old-fashioned jazz lovers who wore painter-style caps indoors and sported beat-up tweed jackets from 1940. The remaining portion of the only half-filled Regattabar included boring couples who prefer to listen to the soft-rock station on the car radio, but thought that they could affirm their false sophistication by emptying their wallets for tickets to a jazz show. Despite this group's usual lack of taste, most of the couples seemed especially captured by some of Charlap's more tender moments.

Charlap opened with four consecutive Gershwin tunes, filling each one with bombastic chromatic sequences and lofty chordal soloing. At times the Gershwin tunes included a Monk-ish interpretation, and my chest felt heavy with curious tension, and at other times, Charlap's evident Evans influence would shine, and he would play over Gershwin's changes with a soft syncopation.

Of the Gershwin tunes, "I Was So Young, You Were So Beautiful" was most touching. Charlap played murky yet moody chord voicings with sweeping descending arpeggios to create an effect like falling rain, and K. Washington's sizzling drums certainly contributed to the ambiance. But the top highlight of this piece was K. Washington's evocative bass work. Similar to the style of late bassist Eddie Gomez, Washington played an almost counterpoint melody to Charlap's solo, and when it came time for Washington's solo, his lines hovered with warm depth as he slid an interval up a fourth on the neck of the bass. Indeed, I felt these slides up my neck, as well.

In fact, Washington's bass excellence was not just the highlight of a single Gershwin ballad; it was the highlight of the entire show. While most bassists walk an important but usually uneventful line, Washington played meaningful melodies that also fulfilled the traditional function of the bass. In addition to his emotionally piercing ballad solos, his up-tempo solos were also amazing and somewhat atypical of bassists. Instead of a sequence of mildly interesting ideas that fit over the changes but are not completely rhythmically or melodically coherent, Washington's solo was like that of a saxophonist. On some solos, he played constant eighth notes, and I am certain that a few lines came from Charlie Parker himself. Washington elevated the role of the bass from an accompanying instrument to a full-fledged participant in the creation of improvised music.

A favorite of Bill Evans, The Bill Charlap Trio played the standard "Sleeping Bee" at a stunningly fast tempo. Charlap rocked back and forth, red in the face, like a mad scientist as he hammered out wild phrases. Despite his theatrics, his solo was somewhat incomprehensible. The lines were intriguing but did not quite have the zest required for "Sleeping Bee," and as a result, most of the solo sounded muddled. This was not too disappointing, however, because soon after Charlap's solo, K. Washington again stole the stage, playing blazingly fast yet still darty, slippery melodies. Towards the end of the bass solo, P. Washington faded in intricate rhythmic patterns and eventually played a full up-tempo drum solo. He turned off the snare of the snare drum and used brushes instead of sticks to give the solo a textured and a tribal feel.

To end the set, the trio played an excellent rendition of Leonard Bernstein's "Lonely Town." They painted a cold but comfortable wintry scene that reminded me of a desolate cabin in frosted woods where an old fox-hunting man lives alone, happy and warm, deriving a particular enjoyment from performing his nightly routine of cooking stew. The next section of the song was sassy and upbeat, and was not particularly enjoyable in comparison to my cabin. The song ended with a marvelous James Bond-style counterpoint between the bass and piano that resembled "The Peacocks" from the Bill Evans album You Must Believe in Spring. Finally, a disturbing, descending scale, like slowly shattering glass, concluded the song.