Saturday, March 10, 2007

Thanks Leonard

It was wonderful to spend time with Leonard Garr in San Fran this week. We had lunch at a Chinese restaurant near Gough and then walked down to a piano store on VanNess where he played for me.

He is so good and played a few of my favorites including Begin the Beguine and All The Things You Are.

It was fun to watch them selling pianos and I know if I ever get a big enough place, I want a baby grand to fill it up with. I saw an episode of How It's Made on the subject of building pianos a few weeks back and it's an amazing process.

If you ever want to hire a great guy to play at your next party, Leonard's the man. He and the guy who runs the piano store (also a great lounge player) were telling funny stories about all the fancy hotel gigs in SF they've endured and how as a musician, you learn to shut up and play and not notice all the odd stuff going down around you. Some of the hotels have rules for their piano players like no playing, "I Left My Heart In SF" and others only let you play happy, upbeat stuff in their lobbies, no ballads or sad songs.