Showing talent from an early age, Cyrus Chestnut started playing the piano at three years old. He received classical training at a good school in Baltimore, his home town, and then moved to Boston to study jazz at the Berklee College of Music. He rounded out his education by accompanying John Hendricks, Betty Carter, Terence Blanchard, and Branford Marsalis, to mention just a few. He was 30 years old when his recording career got under way. An advocate of mixing genres, Chestnut was always eager to bridge the gap between jazz and gospel. Among his more original recordings are A Charlie Brown Christmas (2000) and Cyrus Plays Elvis (2007). For Journeys (2010), he was joined by the other members of his trio, Dezron Douglas (bass) and Neal Smith (drums).