[Dixielandjazz] Mimi Blais

[John Farrell]

Charlie Hooks said of his Hungarian trip :

 "Mimi Blais, the fine Montreal stride pianist was along."

Mimi, with whom I have shared many good times (no, not that kind, you
low-minded people) is certainly no stride pianist. She is a vivacious,
classically trained French-Canadian musician who has metamorphosed into an
unbelievably accomplished
ragtime pianist. Her jaw-dropping keyboard technique (rags interlaced with
the classics)
always demoralises any other ragtime pianist who has the bad luck to
appear on the same playbill.

It is something like me being asked to follow Tatum - I think that I would
just kill myself.

John Farrell
stridepiano@tesco.net
http://homepages.tesco.net/~stridepiano/midifiles.htm