From the Boston Herald, June 13, 2007

Pianist performs jazz with ‘Renewed’ spirit after cancer diagnosis

by Bob Young

Jacques Chanier is playing piano again. But the analogy he feels best describes his return to the stage after battling brain cancer is one anyone who has ever snapped a photograph can understand.
    “If I was a camera taking pictures,” Chanier said, “I have found the lens (that brings me) closest to the subject that I’m shooting. (Brain cancer) has narrowed my perception of things.”
    That’s good news both for Chanier and the many fans the Parisian jazzman has made since settling in Boston more than 25 years ago.
    On Saturday, Chanier gives his first major public concert since being diagnosed with the disease in the summer of 2005. He performs with trombonist Jeff Galindo at the Lily Pad to mark the release of their new CD, “Access Renewed,” a live double-CD.
    Chanier’s artwork will also be on display at the club. But not so long ago it looked as if all his artistic endeavors were at an end after the first of three biopsies left him paralyzed on his left side.
    “I had to relearn how to walk, how to process, how to play,” Chanier said. “It took a while.”
    On his Web site, he puts it this way: “For several months, my accomplishments would be to hold a stone in my hand and walk unassisted. I entered a parallel world where memory and counting were close to impossible. I could not process a very simple song and my fingers would not play the right keys.”
    With help from his then-girlfriend, now wife, Ruth, Chanier kept making progress.
    “In the process, I end up relearning what I already knew,” he said, “but in a different way. The recording is a reflection of that.”
    Chanier and Galindo’s CD of material by Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, Duke Ellington and other legends showcases a pianist in relaxed command of his instrument interpreting the classics in his own way.
    “All of the songs were part of my studies (before cancer),” he said. “I realized that I had had a lot of trouble with them. I never felt I was able to learn any of them because the personalities of the masters are so strong. Part of me was not comfortable with the idea of covering them. Now that I’ve gone through this, I feel that what’s important about jazz is to discover what you can do, not so much what those guys can do. I got to replay those songs with a new outlook, which is that the songs are only there to express myself.”
    Chanier says that he’s now feeling good, swimming, running and walking regularly. But because of an allergic reaction to chemotherapy, he’s about to change treatments. Right now his plans for the future are uncertain, except for a determination to keep making music.
    “I’m more connected to my senses now,” he said. “Jazz has been a great help for me going through this because it teaches you to be present at the moment. The goal for a jazz player is to be there at all times, which is not always easy to achieve. I feel I’ve gotten closer to that goal.”
    

Jacques Chanier and Jeff Galindo, at the Lily Pad, Cambridge, Saturday night at 7:30 and 9:30 . Tickets: $12; 617-395-1393.