Johnny Guarnieri

Johnny Guarnieri (1917-1985) was born in New York City into a musical family that claimed descent from the Guarneri violin makers of Cremona, and he was trained first as a classical pianist. The swing boom pulled him in another direction. By 1939 he was in Benny Goodman's band, and the following year he joined Artie Shaw, where a studio experiment made him a footnote in every jazz history since: on the Gramercy Five sessions of 1940, including the hit "Summit Ridge Drive," he played the harpsichord, the first time the instrument had ever been given a jazz solo role.

Through the 1940s he became one of the busiest session pianists in New York, cutting hundreds of sides as a sideman and leader while holding staff jobs in the radio orchestras. The company he kept says enough about his standing: he recorded with Lester Young on the celebrated Keynote small-group dates, worked in trios with bassist Slam Stewart, and backed singers and soloists across every label in town. His style folded Fats Waller's bounce and Art Tatum's speed into something lighter and slyer, full of quotes and wit.

In the 1960s he settled in Los Angeles, playing long solo residencies and studio work, and in his last decade he became a one-man stride revival. His party piece, and eventually a serious project, was recasting stride classics in five-four time, including a "Maple Leaf Rag" in 5/4 that has to be heard to be believed. He kept a nightly restaurant residency almost to the end of his life in 1985, a working pianist for fifty years without interruption.