Erroll Garner's Concert By The Sea

I’ve been a jazz fan for just about as long as I’ve been a music fan. Amongst the many 78s my Dad and I bought at jumble sales were big band jazz, as well as trad jazz records. I’ve also loved the sound of great piano playing. Both my maternal grandparents played piano, my grandad was a piano tuner - it’s the one instrument that I’ve always wanted to play. Sometime in the late 1960s I read about Errol Garner’s ‘Concert By The Sea’ and immediately added it to my list of ‘must have’ LPs. I bought it from another jumble sale, probably in 1968 or 9 – it turned out to be a revelation.

I knew nothing other than what I’d read of Errol Garner and one of the things I recall learning, early on, was that he was unable to read a single note of music – neither could my piano tuning grandad, he did it all by ear. Garner was born in Pittsburgh in 1921 and began working in a New York nightclub in 1944. He started out subbing for Art Tatum in a trio that became the Slam Stewart Trio in 1945 – the three-piece remained Garner’s chosen musical vehicle for the rest of his career.

Garner’s first notable success was when he composed what has become a standard – ‘Misty’. While he made numerous records nothing compares to his ‘Concert By The Sea’ that was recorded on 19 September 1955 in a converted church in Carmel, California. Even with the problems of a slightly out of tune piano (my grandad would have fixed it) and some dubious acoustics, it is just the perfect piano trio recording.

The Garner style is one that is totally self taught, with no formal training or limitations and of the tunes on this album ‘They Can’t take That Away From me’, ‘Teach Me Tonight’ and ‘Autumn Leaves’ are my favourites. His style was very different from his contemporaries in that his left hand was a ‘rhythm hand’, just listen to the opening of ‘l’ll Remember April.’

‘Concert By The Sea’ has been called flawed, and it is, but it remains one of the greatest testaments to the art of piano playing that I know.