[Dixielandjazz] Trad Jazz (British) and the piano

[Rick Zahniser]

Son Tim Zahn started shopping for old pianos in the 70's when they ;showed
up on malls or pawn shops.  He had a friend who showed him how to repair
them and then the friend would tune them for a piece of the action. I had a
flatbed trailer and we would pick some up in denver.  It was a lot of
fun... mostly old uprights.

Rick


On Sun, Feb 23, 2014 at 5:20 AM, Jerry Brown <jazz1jerry at btinternet.com>wrote:

> A reverse story on bad pianos. A number of years ago Art Hodes and Wild
> Bill Davison were playing a venue here in Norwich. The piano had been tuned
> a couple of days before but looked as though it had been through several
> world wars. Battered to put it mildly and well marked with many beer glass
> rings. Before the gig and whilst the place was still empty Art looked very
> worried but walked over sat down, lifted the lid and started to play. After
>  a few moments he put the lid down, got over and walked back towards us
> still looking concerned. Thankfully his first words were, "that's about the
> best piano I have played all tour." Relief all round! During the evening he
> even played duets with his wife.
>
> Jerry
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> > On 21 Feb 2014, at 22:58, "Ken Mathieson" <ken at kenmath.free-online.co.uk>
> wrote:
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I've never been a fan of pianoless rhythm sections, but in the days
> before electric pianos, a trad jazz gig was always a lottery given the
> shocking state of the majority of pianos encountered in pubs and clubs. One
> disastrous piano gig above all sticks in my mind: it was a rugby club dance
> and the piano was BAD. In the main it was a semi-tone out, but of course
> not consistently so across the 88 keys. Our pianist tried bravely to play
> everything a semi-tone different from normal, but eventually retired to the
> bar at the first interval a defeated man.
> >
> > There he had a heated conversation with the organiser, who asked him if
> the piano just needed a "bit of tuning or a full overhaul." The pianist's
> reply was "What it needs is a (expletive deleted) Viking Funeral!"
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Ken
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