RIP Johnny Knapp, jazz pianist

[Count Machuki]

yeah, I'd never heard of him either but check out this interview - killer story

https://musicguy247.typepad.com/my-blog ... ordionist/

(one of my employees has played with him, I guess)

[Count Machuki]

J.K. - Happening so quickly. I was playing in a place in Brighton Beach - near Coney Island - called The Pink Elephant. There was a guy there who wanted to play saxophone... and he was terrible!!! The fella's in the band said "Listen, we can't let you play... you sound so bad." So he went home and studied. When he came back, he became Herbie Mann... the great flute player.

R.V.B. - He sure made a lot of records.

J.K. - He used to laugh at us then. "Now you wish you could play with me." The piano player at that time - Bobby Scott - wrote a song that landed on the Billboard charts A Taste of Honey. I took over for him and little by little I became a piano player. The accordion couldn't do it. I took a job in the Catskills. There was some good shows because they had no piano players. They had an accordion player but he couldn't cover all the shows. When I left the Catskills, I went to look for a teacher in New York. I joined the union at that time and as I looked up for a teacher, on the letter A was Clarence Adler. I went to see him, and by this time I was making a lot of money on accordion. Now I was working society jobs... I was working for Lester Lanin... I was working at the Waldorf. Even there I had to play accordion. I got to be the best of friends with Clarence Adler. His son... Richard Adler... who wrote Damn Yankees, from Broadway. Clarence Adler's teacher was Godowsky, who studied from Liszt. So it went from Liszt, to Godowsky, to Alder, to me.

R.V.B. - Your 4th removed from Franz Liszt. That's pretty high class lineage.

J.K. - You bet your ass.

R.V.B. (Hahaha) So it wasn't one specific defining moment that made your career... it gradually happened. During this network period, you were basically entrenched in the jazz genre?

J.K. - No. I made more money in the classical end of things. There was an unusual band in New York - of 16 musicians - who could play any song... in any key... at any part. In other words, they had a guy who played 1st saxophone, 2nd saxophone, 3rd saxophone, 4th saxophone, 5th saxophone... without music. Their ears were so good, they could play all the parts;the same thing with three trumpets, two trombones, and a guitar. They had a piano player, and they had me. We were so good that every day we worked with a different leader. They would say we were his band. One day we would be Lester Lanin's and the next day we would be Bugs Walters. It was every day of the week....at the Pierre... the Plaza. We made the top money... and I was in that band. I eventually worked with Skitch Henderson. When Skitch got up from playing to talk to people, I played piano. So I got to be a very good society player. When I was older, I used to work Birdland. For a while there, I was the house piano player. I didn't make much money, but I played with everybody.

R.V.B. - Who were some of the people that you played with?

J.K. - I played a few dates with Miles. I worked with Maynard Ferguson... I worked with Johnny Richards... I worked with Sarah Vaughn and Carmen McRae. I worked with Billy Holiday at Basin Street. There was a place that would put on shows with different artists at the time, and I would work with Billie there. I worked with every singer in the world. Little by little, I got good experience... I was a good player. I could play in 20 languages, on the accordion. I was doing Greek albums... I was doing Turkish albums... French albums... Indian albums... Italian albums. I played all the ethnic work. I would play all the club dates, but my heart was into jazz.

[fange]

Sounds like a fascinating musical life! RIP.