Ken Nappier Pianist from Lebanon, PA

My jazz repertoire includes standards like "Autumn in New York," by Vernon Duke and "Georgia On My Mind," by Hoagy Carmichael. With arpeggios and stride techniques I play the full range of the eighty-eight keys. With a song like "Skylark" I might play it the first time through with subdued convention, expanding to a bluesy New Orleans rift in the improvised solo. My major influences are far and wide, including Bill Evans, Bill Charlap, Harry Connick Jr., Chet Baker, Miles Davis and George Winston. It's often a surprise to people when I transition to familiar pop ballads by the Beatles, Elton John or Sarah McLachlan. Before you know it the requests are coming in for every conceivable top ten hit of the last fifty years. I do my best to play them all because nothing feels more natural than playing outside of a script. I bring a song list with me to each venue but I never quite know what the evening will sound like. The gift to improvise also includes knowing a crowd and the proper mood to achieve. Other genres include Italian operatic adaptations by Puccini, Verdi and Rossini. I play them with an electrified eloquence reminiscent of Cliburn or Rubinstein. This might seem like an odd diversion from a typical lounge jazz piano player. Somehow all the classical romance blends seamlessly with the bygone era of Hollywood movie ballads like "Laura," by David Raksin or "An Affair to Remember," by Harry Warren.