SOLO JAZZ PIANO

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My first public performance on piano was back in 1958 on the Boblo boat sailing down the Detroit River. I was 12 years old. A young bongo player and I had worked up some improvisations to perform on this summer field trip. The announcer asked what we were going to play and I told him nothing special. "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm proud to present Larry Lofquist playing one of his own compositions called 'Nothing Special.'"

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Little did I realize at the time that this kind of playing would be putting bread and butter on the table for so many years.

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My solo piano career began while in the Army, stationed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. A typical gig ran 5 hours from either 8 to 1, or 9 to 2. I had to play almost everything from lead sheets in those days, and did little more than embellish the melody with a few chords that I had learned from a real pianist.

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During the 70s I lived in Boston and played mostly in bands, getting calls for an occasional solo piano job in Boston or Cape Cod. When I moved to Vienna I joined Italian singer Fausto Mola in the legendary Eden Bar. Then in 1985 I got a 4-month contract at the Eldorado Park Hotel, playing 6 nights a week at a piano bar, that is, a grand piano outfitted with bar stools and a cushioned area for drinks and ashtrays along the edge of the lid. I used the earnings to buy a ticket to Rio de Janeiro.

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In Rio I played the Buffalo Grill, the Copacabana Mall, the Intercontinental, Le Meridien, and a few other hotels before beginning a 4-month engagement at the Equinox Restaurant in Ipanema.

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Returning to Vienna a year later, I formed a trio but still played the occasional solo piano job. Then from 1988 until January 2005 I was house pianist at the Renaissance Hotel Wien, a big chunk of my life, as the legendary Dave McKenna once expressed it. This was interrupted by a 6-month stay in New York, where I played the Trade Towers Marriott, the Grand Central Hyatt and the Dish of Salt restaurant in Times Square.

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I began playing bar piano, or cocktail piano as its known in America, with the notion that the music should sound like what was heard in the exclusive restaurants of Hollywood films. In the early 70s I moved from Detroit to Boston, where I found the East Coast version, with the likes of Teddy Wilson, Dave McKenna, Bob Winter and Ray Santisi filling the plush lounges of the Copley Plaza, The Playboy Club and The Four Seasons with strains of melodious jazz served up their way. It was a music steeped in the traditions of ragtime, swing and stride. The songs belonged to Gershwin, Cole Porter, Earl Warren, Matt Dennis and a host of lesser known songwriters whose hits graced the Top 40 of yesteryear. They played 6 nights a week and we loved it.

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Cocktail piano at its best is played so that the audience can either listen to each set as a concert, or can tune in and out as he or she wishes. It must be malleable, a plastic art that changes form to fit the changing audiences--spontaneous, a conversation with the conversation-at-large. I like the music to have a pulse, a gentle swing or Latin pulse, although one should be a master of rubato playing. In short, cocktail piano is best described by John Lewis' definition of jazz as a delicate balance between art and entertainment.

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The greatest challenge of playing cocktail piano is playing to an audience who for the most part expects you to play as if you weren't there, or who expects the songs to sound like the record. There is a constant coming and going of people, with drinks being ordered, ice being crushed or coffee ground; folks requesting a tune that you've just finished playing, or interrupting to ask what it is you're playing. Someone always wants to sit in. If you get louder, the room gets louder, and when you stop, if it's not carefully engineered to draw applause, the silence can get icy.

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Requests come up on occasion. I have even played tunes that I never played before. Often they come out sounding like it, but people appreciate the effort. The audiences have included celebrities. My first gig in Boston was a fund-raiser for Father Drinan, the first Jesuit priest who ran for and was elected to the U.S. Congress. A year later I played at a fund-raiser for John Kerry. Ted Kennedy, Franz Vranitzky (former chancellor of Austria), Falco, Nicki Lauda, Agnes Balsa and Loren Maazel have been in the audiences. There have been a number of fine musicians who sat in--Shelley Hirsch, an avant-garde theatrical performer began singing "Sophisticated Lady" from the middle of the room, and Chico Hamilton, a jazz drummer, stood behind me while I accompanied him singing "Lush Life."

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One night the famous Viennese pianist Friedrich Gulda sat in the Renaissance all night long without me having recognized him. On the way home I saw a billboard and knew it was him by the hat. I decided to bring in the lead sheet to his waltz, "Du und i," should he return the next night. He did and I played it and got a critique as well as a compliment.

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While cocktail piano has always been an art form that looks to the past, there was once-upon-a-time a standard repertoire that has expanded considerably in recent years. And while the hush of conversation and the clinking of glasses can enhance a mood, the cell telephone can easily damage it.

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My own repertoire includes the aforementioned American Songbook as well as the Brazilian songbook, jazz classics, some pop and original tunes and a pastiche of spontaneous improvising in between.

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My first engagement playing cocktail piano was at the Officers' Club in Leavenworth, Kansas. My longest was 15-plus years at the Renaissance in Vienna, and the most anticipated was a private party in Manhattan's Upper West Side for New Year's Eve, 1999. My favorite was probably the Clark Cooke House in Newport, Rhode Island. At 9:00 sharp, two waiters removed a tiny out-of-tune spinet from under the cash register, and it was show time! The place was always crowded and noisy in a friendly way. The lighting, the ambience, the atmosphere, and the seaside location made for an outstanding gig.

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In the best tradition of barroom piano, the music was recorded on an out-of-tune Steinway M with no one else present.

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Composer