Album Notes

This music comes out of a summer series I have had the honor of organizing and performing in for five years at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. One evening in July 1997 I was playing the Museum piano when a man approached and said, How come you hardly ever hear this kind of music around here anymore?? I don't know if by ?here? he meant Provincetown or Cape Cod or what. This kind of music was, as I recall, some song by Vernon Duke or Jimmy Van Heusen.

The fellows question moved me to propose to the Museums director eight or ten weekly concerts in which I would accompany invited singers and instrumentalists and play some solo piano. The emphasis would be on American popular songs, with jazz and cabaret treatments. My proposal was accepted and we started the following June. The first seasons visiting musicians included clarinetist Joe Muranyi, a veteran of Louis Armstrongs All Stars; Lou Colombo, a trumpeter admired even by Dizzy Gillespie; and the very accomplished jazz singer Barbara Lea. 1999 brought singers Nancy Harrow and Jimmy Mazzy, the latter in the company of trumpeter Peter Ecklund. The third season added singer and guitarist Marty Grosz. Subsequent guests traveling to Provincetown to perform were singer Meredith D?Ambrosio, reed virtuoso Dan Block, and trumpeter John Bucher. The roster also had excellent local musicians such as singers Blair Resika, Pavia, and Carol Wyeth, and saxophonist Carmen Cicero.

Since rehearsals were difficult to arrange, many of the concerts were distinguished by informality and spontaneity. Planning was possible, however, on certain occasions, so we were able to present musical tributes to composers and historic performers: Richard Rodgers, Jimmy McHugh, Arthur Schwartz, Kurt Weill, Hoagy Carmichael, Victor Young, Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong.

The concerts are held in the Museum?s large front gallery, which is the home of a Steinway. The audience is surrounded by paintings and sculpture by the likes of Charles Hawthorne, Hans Hoffman, and Milton Avery. When concertgoers step outside during intermission they are across the road from one of the most beautiful harbors in the world. The environment is, for the musician, inspirational, a far cry from the noisy bar with the tinny piano where he may have played his previous gig.

All the music on this compact disk comes from the summer of 2002. The solo piano numbers were recorded at the Wellfleet Congregational Church on a nine-foot Steinway owned and made available for the occasion by The Cape Cod (formerly Cape & Islands) Chamber Music Festival. The other thirteen numbers were recorded during concerts at the Provincetown Museum.