Thursday, Sep. 22, 2011

IVORY COAST

Don’t shoot ‘em, they’re only the piano players

Mark Kaufmann, entertainment director and performer at Crocodile Rocks at Broadway at the Beach. Courtesy photo.

 

September is seen by some as a melancholy month - especially for students and teachers throwing themselves back into the school year. Many remember seeing the Jerry Lewis Telethon [now the MDA Labor Day Telethon] as a harbinger of the work to to come and the demarcation point between good times and the grindstone. And the horror of the 9-11 attacks have forever cast a pall on this already gloomy month.

But it’s not all bad.

September is also National Piano Month, a celebration set up by the National Piano Foundation [http://pianonet.com] to encourage folks to study, listen to and otherwise appreciate the piano.

With the iconic Schroeder from Peanuts in place as the official spokesman, the organization hopes to raise awareness about the instrument.

With this in mind, Weekly Surge took a look around for venues where the piano is king, and decided to focus on local piano bars.

There are a number of such spots here on the Grand Strand, and a crop of gifted performers to fill the benches. From low-key and intimate, elegant to bombastic, there are piano bars and piano players here with styles to suit all tastes.

Along the way, we found a cadre of local guys who have made their marks on the piano bar landscape for years if not decades - right in our back yard - the “original gangstas” of the scene, if you will - and through this diverse group we have been given a study in contrast and a glimpse of what piano bars mean to them.

IT’S NINE O’CLOCK ON A SATURDAY

For nearly 15 years, piano player and vocalist Rod France has been the go-to entertainer at Eighty Eights, a piano bar attached to Rossi’s in Myrtle Beach.

Originally from Chattanooga, Tenn., France arrived on the Grand Strand 21 years ago as a result of a random piano gig at a Florence hotel, a musical whistlestop in a series of road engagements set up by agents.

“They were filming ‘Days of Thunder,’ and the film crew was staying there,” he says, adding that the film crew liked him, so the hotel management kept him there four months. During that time he made a lot of friends, and through one of them was able to secure a six-month piano engagement at the Ocean Dunes [Resort & Villas] in Myrtle Beach.

“While I was here I got to know the area and I saw the possibilities - the opportunity for musicians to live and work in the same place and not be on the road all of the time.”

At that time, France says that local musicians were a tight-knit group, and securing gigs by referral from other players was the norm because everyone knew each other. He played Yakety Yaks, a dueling piano venue at 2001 Nightclub and predecessor to Crocodile Rocks for a year-and-a-half. “[Fellow piano player] Marty Richardson and I were the first two guys onstage when Yakety Yaks opened in 1993.” He remembers playing Mondays and Tuesdays at Eighty Eights at Rossi’s as far back as 1992, but it was 1997 when he accepted an offer to play there full time, and he has been there ever since.

And France ushered in some stylistic changes at the venue.

“I came in to Eighty Eights with a new type of agenda and a new approach,” he says. “Formerly it was a little more low key and very lounge-like. I asked to have the chance to go with something a little more upbeat, and before you know it we had people dancing.”

It was also France’s suggestion to move the piano into a spot where people could sit around the instrument, a nine foot Yamaha concert grand. This is what many think of when they imagine a piano bar in the classic sense - enjoying the music up close and personal with perhaps a martini sitting atop the instrument.

“A patron who has come in for years never sat at the piano until recently. She told me that she likes it better, and said ‘I can see you up close - the emotions on your face and how you get into the songs.’” This proximity sometimes serves as comedic fodder for France. When people are talking at the piano, he repeats snippets of conversation, sometimes added to a song as an impromptu lyric.

When we dropped by Eighty Eights late one recent evening, we noticed an easygoing repartee between France and bar manager Scott Worrell - almost as if the two were in cahoots - working in tandem to create a memorable experience. “We haven’t practiced anything,” says France. “It’s just natural with us. Scott’s a snappy guy with all of those comments he comes back with.”

The two appear to be at ease in their respective posts - the bar being Worrell’s instrument.

“We’re coworkers and friends,” he says. “We’re not afraid to banter back and forth with each other. Of course it’s all harmless and it’s all about getting the crowd involved.”

In his estimation, the ambiance inside Eighty Eights takes people back to a classier time - and his customers return time and time again to soak it all in.

“Eighty Eights is a classic piano bar,” says Worrell. “We have an intimate and elegant setting - kind of like a Frank Sinatra or Rat Pack sort of style.”

Requests are a big deal to France. “You’ve got to be able to play a request, have an ear for music and have a lot of it rattling around in your brain from years past.”

And it is his goal to get everyone involved.

“We try to engage everybody in the room, but if someone doesn’t want to get involved, they can sit there and have a conversation and treat it as background music. It can go any way you want.”

Eighty Eights draws its share of newcomers, to be sure, but the venue also sees a number of locals and what France calls regulars.

“They might not live here year-round but they might have a place here - maybe a condo they rent for the season or own. Let’s say they are from Charlotte or Raleigh or Greensboro or wherever. During the fall or winter we might see them here almost every weekend.”

And it’s all about repeat customers...listeners.

“One of the nice things about this place is that people come back often.” says Worrell. “We get locals and we get the tourists and I have seen many of the same faces year in and year out.”

And it has become a destination in its own right, as France elaborates: “I think the primary focus is an average age that is a little older, because some don’t have bars that they feel comfortable going to - but that doesn’t exclude the fact that we are visited by younger people, too. It’s amazing when I get someone in there asking for a standard or something. I say to them, ‘Well I’m glad you like your parents’ music,” he laughs.

France plays in real time with no sequencers.

“I only play the piano with a drum machine. The drum machine has a pattern on it – that repeats – and then I use a foot switch to start and stop it – or throw in a fill. Sometimes I don’t even use that if it’s appropriate – just play a nice ballad or something without the drum machine. Everything is live, and that allows me to be flexible. I’m not locked into any kind of sequence.”

A MATTER OF TRUST

Mark Kaufman, entertainment director and performer at Crocodile Rocks Dueling Pianos at Broadway at the Beach is practically a Grand Strand native, having moved here from Baltimore when he was five.

Kaufman, 40, played in various local rock bands from high school into his early 20s and was a music major at Coastal Carolina University before snagging a plum job with Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede, where he played piano for seven years.

In 1996, he went to work at the then brand new Crocodile Rocks at Celebrity Square.

“For awhile my jobs overlapped,” he says. “I would do the show at Dixie and run to my dressing room to change into normal clothes - then I’d fly down [U.S.] 17, pull into Broadway and then sometimes go right on stage.”

Crocodile Rocks could be considered a piano bar on steroids. The venue utilizes two intertwining grand pianos with a minimum of two performers onstage at a clip.

But every hour the scene changes to what Kaufman calls four-ways, where two or three songs are done as an ensemble with the two pianos, drums and a bass keyboard with four-part vocal harmonies.

“We’ll do ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by Queen. One guy plays the fiddle so we’ll do ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia’[by Charlie Daniels]”

There are seven piano players, including Kaufman, in rotation, and all work four nights per week.

At Crocodile Rocks, audience participation is the bread-and-butter.

“It’s a wild, crazy, hold-on-to-your-seat kind of ride.” People are constantly called down to the stage for birthdays, anniversaries or bachelorette parties.

“We are going to do your requests - anything from rap to country, to rock or disco. You name it.” Include the hourly four-ways and the fact that wait staff is encouraged to come on stage and dance and the operative word is bombastic.

As entertainment director, Kaufman is in charge of the talent, the stage and the show. He hires and fires piano players, does payroll and runs rehearsals essentially controlling every aspect of entertainment in the club.

“If something breaks onstage, I get it fixed. If a piano player is singing the wrong lyrics or playing something wrong, I correct them.”

When it comes to recruiting piano players, Kaufman cautions that this gig might not be for everyone. He has had piano players come in all gung ho, handing Kaufman a 30-song song list.

He usually counters by giving these prospects 100 songs to learn and then puts them onstage. Many become overwhelmed and Kaufman might not hear from them again, but others rise to the challenge.

“Some just excel at it and catch on quick,” he says. “They come in and watch the show and say ‘I can do that.’ They put their own spin on it and just take off.”

Kaufman, who cites Prince and Paul McCartney as his biggest musical influences, sums up what might put Crocodile Rocks in its own category.

“The whole audience participation thing definitely sets us apart. You’ve got two pianos going at the same time and it’s one crazy show.”

IT’S STILL ROCK AND ROLL TO ME

Surge Music Notes columnist Paul Grimshaw has referred to the aforementioned Marty Richardson as the area’s original dueling pianist/entertainer.

Getting his start in the dueling piano realm at Cincinnati’s Howl at the Moon in 1990, Richardson made his mark on the Grand Strand starting, like Eighty Eights’ France, at Yakety Yaks at 2001 nightclub in 1993 and culminating in a long relationship with Crocodile Rocks as a business partner and performer from its inception until he parted ways with the venue five years ago.

For 11 years, Richardson has been an owner of another dueling pianos venue, Savannah Smiles Dueling Pianos Saloon in Savannah, Ga., and usually plays once a week, making the four-hour trek from his home in Little River.

In earlier years, he did a solo opening slot for noted piano man Leon Russell and was with a band that opened in the Cincinnati area for the likes of Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Survivor, NRBQ (New Rhythm and Blues Quartet) and southern rockers Point Blank.

“The last opener I did was in 1988 on Richard Marx’s first tour.”

But Richardson’s heart belongs to dueling pianos.

“I found that dueling pianos to me was the best of both worlds,” he says. “You could do the singing and the playing. You could do the entertaining and make people happy. If I can do that briefly, I believe that answers to a higher calling.”

But the crux of dueling pianos is that this is not a solo effort.

“You are only as good as the guys you work with, and I have worked with the best. This area has got so many great dueling piano players, and I am humbled by that.”

Richardson has referred to himself as a “pounder,” meaning somebody who has a heavy left hand and tends to get more physically aggressive with their piano playing - and. working in a traditional piano bar is something he has never done.

“I tend to be more of a rocker. I can play with finesse if I need to, but I feel much more comfortable playing rock ‘n’ roll. Given the choice I would play Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis - I like that a lot better.”

SON CAN YOU PLAY ME A MEMORY?

One can imagine the thousands of times France has been requested to play Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.” “I do it,” he says. “It’s not my favorite and certainly not the staff’s favorite - but I do it with a smile.I’ve got my own version of it that includes people’s names instead of the original names in the song. I try to throw some comedy lines in there to make it amusing for myself as well.”

“Brown Eyed Girl” and “New York, New York” are requested quite a bit - but sometimes it is not a particular song, but rather an artist that is requested. “Like, ‘hey do some Elton John for me.’ I appreciate that because I only know eight or 10 of his songs. So it’s easier when people ask for [Elton John] or Billy Joel or James Taylor. That allows me to pick the ones I know.”

Crocodile Rocks’ Kaufman is open to suggestions from his piano players when it comes to the four-ways, but the songs for the rest of the night are completely audience-driven. One of the advertisements for Crocodile Rocks states that requests are done their way. “There are a lot of songs we’ll do that we change the words in them to make them kind of raunchy or funny with innuendo.”

He has seen patterns in top requests through the years - running the gamut from “Piano Man,” Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” and Lewis’ “Great Balls of Fire” to John’s “Crocodile Rock” and Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock ‘n’ Roll.” For the last five to eight years, he cites Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” and Bon Jovi’s “Living On a Prayer” as two of the most requested songs.

After two decades in the dueling piano arena, is there any request that Richardson finds tiresome?

“It would be really easy and cliche to say I don’t want to play ‘Brown Eyed Girl,’ but you know what? If I start to play a song - and I don’t care if I played it a hundred million times - if I look out and see people clapping and smiling and singing - it’s a brand new song for me. All you have to do is look out there and see a table full of bikers singing “Build Me Up, Buttercup,” and you go, ‘OK’.”

SCENES FROM AN ITALIAN RESTAURANT

Jazz pianist Tony Rosales, who plays at Villa Tuscanna in North Myrtle Beach, creates an altogether different musical vibe - smooth and low key - and is another example of the contrasting styles you can encounter in piano bars along the Grand Strand.

Rosales started out on the organ as a child, but was not completely happy with it and soon switched to piano, but what he took away from the organ serves him to this day. “I feel fortunate that I leaned to play the bass pedals.” Indeed, one can see that in action at Villa Tuscanna. Rosales keeps a set of bass pedals underneath the piano, and as he deftly delivers jazz instrumentals and big band standards from the 1940s and 1950s, his foot is all over those pedals, creating a rich but unobtrusive bottom end layer.

Rosales’ repertoire is strictly instrumental. With so much going on with his fingers and feet, it would be hard to imagine him belting out vocals as well.

“Anybody who goes to see Dave Brubeck doesn’t expect him to start singing ‘Margaritaville,’” jokes Rosales.

The piano at Villa Tuscanna is set up in an alcove in the bar that opens into the dining room, and the piano music sets the mood for this quaint, traditional setting. He says his style there could be considered dinner or lounge music, but with an emphasis on jazz.

He cites the iconic classical master Vladimir Horowitz as his technical foundation, but his influences are Carmen Cavallaro and Oscar Peterson - bringing together the big band era and jazz.

He began playing piano bars on Long Island, N.Y. at age 16, but it would be awhile before he considered himself a professional jazz musician.

“I was already working five nights a week at regular piano bars, but it took me years to master jazz piano,” he says. He devoted much of his practice time - sometimes 15 hours per day - to a compilation of finger exercises developed by Charles-Louis Hanon and dating back to 1873 - a series of increasingly complicated scales meant to build strength, dexterity and speed for pianists. “I’m still practicing from that book, and it seems like forever.”

He first came to Myrtle Beach in 1991 and quickly snagged a job at the Myrtle Beach Hilton. He went back to New York in 1993 and picked up the Hilton job again when he moved here permanently in 1995.

“Unfortunately, the operation was sold to Wyndham Resorts in 1998,” he says. “When the new corporation took over, they changed the entertainment and the first one to go was the piano player.”

Other piano jobs followed, including three years previously at Villa Tuscanna, a five-year stint with Sun Cruz Casino and a four-year run at Martini’s in North Myrtle Beach, which ended nearly a year ago.

“They changed owners and wanted to try something new, and that worked for me because after working six nights a week in the same place for so many years, it seemed like going to the office from 9-to-5.”

(Martini’s new owner Jeff Sisk confirms that he did indeed change up the entertainment concept there, weaving in singers, guitarists and piano music in a weekly rotation.)

Rosales also played a number of local functions at the request of former S.C. Gov. Jim Hodges.

Many on the Grand Strand make it a point to seek him out when they need a jazz fix.

“People know who I am and where I am. They love to come over and have a cocktail or two - have dinner - relax and listen to my music.” As for newcomers, a fist-time reaction might be that he’s not playing at all because his vibe seems so effortless.

“Sometimes I think they are joking but they might mean it,” he says - as if they might be listening to a CD or a computer system. Rosales sees this as a compliment. “That comes from the [Hanon] exercises and all of the practice.”

PIANO (ACCORDION) MAN

In the grainy black-and-white music video for “The Downeaster Alexa,” Billy Joel is front and center playing a piano accordion as a centerpiece, and without the plaintive drone of the instrument, the song would not be the same.

For more than two decades, Michael Del Gardo has been a fixture at Villa Romana in Myrtle Beach, and while his instrument of choice is the piano accordion, his instrument has piano keys after all, and it breathes. Del Gardo is essentially walking around with an orchestra strapped to his chest, making Villa Romana a de facto piano bar.

Del Gardo started on the accordion at age four. Now 52, he remembers continuing on with the instrument despite the inherent geek factor attached to it.

“The accordion was not much of a chick magnet when I was little,” he chuckles. “The accordion was so stigmatized by Lawrence Welk with the big band and polka music, and I was a kid coming out of the hippie generation.” He says he became a bit sarcastic with his approach and played on that. “I was psychologically influenced by being an outcast - and way down the food chain of musical instruments - and being a musician is way down the food chain of acceptable jobs.”

But don’t be fooled. Del Gardo has carved out an enviable situation for himself on the Grand Strand, and learned long ago that playing the accordion for a living had its advantages.

When he was 13, his family moved from New Jersey to Bristol, Tenn. As early as 14, he was already playing on weekends at an Italian restaurant there. “There was no other accordion player around, and I discovered that, while guitar players were working for tips and beer, I could be earning 100 bucks. I was hooked.”

One could say he has come full circle.

“The irony is amazing,” he says.”I was cast aside from other musicians because the accordion was so uncool, and now I have the coolest gig on the planet. All of my musician buddies are out there and they have to scramble every month for more work. I don’t even have to load out.”

Del Gardo’s material varies wildly and strays into surprising areas, given that this is an accordion in an Italian restaurant - classic rock, rock ballads, Italian music, standards, Broadway tunes and old country.

“I don’t know how many people are doing Ten Years After or the Yardbirds. I’ll go a week or two without playing a polka, but I’ll play some Pink Floyd every night.”

Although Del Gardo says he refuses to do “Volare” or “Lady of Spain,” he is always happy to oblige patrons with the theme from “The Godfather” or “That’s Amore.” And, like Rosales, he sticks to instrumentals. “I don’t sing much. I have a couple of funny little ditties I do that I have heard over the years - but my voice and food is a bad combo.”

Another thing he has learned through the years is to play for himself. “I used to try to make the customer happy, which seems like the right thing to do - but when you are playing music, you’ve got to play for your own soul and I hope you enjoy. If you don’t - well maybe the next song.”

Del Gardo acknowledges the correlation between a piano bar and and what he does.

“This is a lot like a piano bar,” he muses. “You’re sitting there having a drink or maybe some apps. The guy is playing music that you know, and you throw in a request for something - it’s straight out of that Billy Joel song.”