I was much more interested in the orchestra than the piano, but I did become fairly proficient as a pianist and my teachers felt I had talent and wanted me to become a good concert pianist and earn my living that way.
My dad's family were political and he was always a theatrical creature, whereas my mum is really musical and her father was the touring pianist with Nat King Cole. My family was an explosive mixture of politics, religion and music - no wonder I turned out how I did.
Along the way [Mozart] got married; fathered seven children (two of whom survived into adulthood); performed as a pianist; violinist; and conductor; maintained a successful teaching studio; wrote thousands of letters; traveled widely; attended the theater religiously; played cards, billiards, and bocce; and rode horseback for exercise. Not bad for someone portrayed as a giggling idiot in the movies.
My father was a banker, but he was an independent spirit. He was a very good pianist and very much into music.
I started off as a studio pianist in Hollywood.
My mother was a classical pianist and my stepfather was an industrialist who was passionate about composing contemporary music.
I find that in California I can't find guys that have enough energy. They play a little bit and that's about it. They play less. If I start a tune and then the pianist has to solo, I am looking to everybody to get to a certain climate and then I come back in while the energy is up high. Somehow that doesn't happen.
Too many jazz pianists limit themselves to a personal style, a trademark, so to speak. They confine themselves to one type of playing. I believe in using the entire piano as a single instrument capable of expressing every possible musical idea. I have no one style. I play as I feel.
I wanted to be a pianist but it just wasn't my thing. I guess I wanted to stand up rather than sit down.
Then, for a hot three or four weeks I wanted to be a concert pianist.
If you can't get a job as a pianist in a brothel, you become a royal reporter.
I'm basically a cocktail jazz kind of pianist. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a very good keyboard player. People think I think I'm good. I think I'm a very poor piano player.
My mother wanted me to be a concert pianist.
You hear the same work by different orchestras, different conductors, violinists, pianists, singers, and slowly, the work reveals itself and begins to live deeper in you.
I couldn't say I ever dreamt of becoming a composer, a pianist, or anything else for that matter. I have the kind of brain where nothing is set in stone.
I consider myself to be an inept pianist, a bad singer, and a merely competent songwriter. ... I'm probably writing music now for the same reason as I started writing songs when I was 14-to meet women. ... If you make music for the human needs you have within yourself, then you do it for all humans who need the same things. You enrich humanity with the profound expression of these feelings. ... My songs are like my kids.
In jazz, you listen to what the bass player is doing and what the drummer is doing, what the pianist and the guitarist is doing, and then you play something that compliments that, so you are thinking simultaneously and thinking ahead.
When Hank Jones had his night off, I would get somebody to take my place as intermission pianist and I'd play the show with Ella, so I would get a chance to play with Ray Brown and Charlie Smith as well.
I don't know where there can be so many pianists as in Paris, so many asses and so many virtuosi.
When a little more than a teenager, I was a piano-bar pianist in the land where I was born and raised, Tuscany.
Frankie Randall is a consummate performer. He is an exquisite jazz pianist and wonderful singer. I had the great pleasure to work with him on the Dean Martin Show and I'm very proud to call him a friend!
For the longest time, I wanted to become a pianist. That was kinda my thing.
My mother adores singing and plays piano. My uncle was a phenomenal pianist. My brother John is a double bassist. I used to play the piano, badly, and cello. My brother Peter played violin.
At the age of 16, something happened with my finger and the doctor told me, you never can be a organist or pianist, so think about what you do with music.
I was going to be a concert pianist, and when I was in high school, my parents were scared to death that I would focus too much on that too soon. And that I'd end up in some sort of dead end, and not fulfilling whatever potential they thought I had.
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