The performers coming to the 2023 BlueStem Jazz/North Street Cabaret Piano Summit invite listeners to open themselves to the layers of sound and harmonic landscape that an acoustic piano can generate, layers not routinely thought about or explored. The four pianists here, Jane Reynolds, Matt Blair, Paul Hastil, and David Stoler represent the acme of the jazz pianists practicing within a small radius of our fair city. Each as individual as they come, but sharing roots in the nineteenth and twentieth century creative jazz tradition. Each searching for–and locating–their place in the modern expression of this music.