Billy Childs Trio plus special guests

Billy Childs brings his trio to Smoke Jazz Club for the final night of a five-night, 12-set engagement. Childs plays piano with bassist Matt Penman and drummer Ari Hoenig. For this Sunday performance, the trio is joined by special guest Steve Wilson on alto saxophone; trumpeter Michael Rodriguez appears earlier in the run, Wednesday through Friday. Expect the core trio format expanded by Wilson’s alto voice rather than a fixed five-piece bill.

Childs is an American pianist and composer described by his Bandcamp page as “one of the foremost American composers of his era,” bringing his musical heritage into conversation with “Western neoclassical traditions.” A six-time Grammy winner, he has worked with Yo-Yo Ma, Sting, Chick Corea, Wynton Marsalis and Renée Fleming. Triumvirate, his first trio recording in 25 years, pairs Childs with Penman and Hoenig. Critics have singled out his “improvisatory skills and powerful sense of swing,” while the Los Angeles Times called him “an inventive composer and arranger.” A review of the trio hears Penman and Hoenig as part of an ongoing musical “discussion,” and JazzTimes praised Childs’ “perfect note placement.”