[Dixielandjazz] The "Music" of Fred Astaire

[dingle]

John Farrell wrote:

>Somebody (who? I cannot remember - it was more than a week ago) once told me
>that Astaire was quite a decent pianist. One of the tracks on a CD of his
>vocals that I have is "Not My Girl" - an Astaire composition - which
>contains a great piano solo which I learned later was played by Oscar
>Peterson. Is there any truth in the rumours of his alleged piano playing
>prowess?
>
>John Farrell
>http://homepages.tesco.net/~stridepiano/midifiles.htm
>
>
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>
A saw a flim clip in a show on Astaire when he was playing and singing, 
and he played fairly well, in a sort of semi-stride, Tin Pan Alley song 
plugger style. Not bad. He also wrote a number of songs, one of which is 
on Tony Bennett's CD of Astaire's film songs. He had very long fingers, 
much like those of  Ubbie Blake. Big reach.
Don Ingle