Note: John Gill is a multi-instrumentalist with wide-ranging musical tastes. However, he is best known as an authority on San Francisco Style Jazz and also as one of the most authentic performers in that idiom. He has studied the music for over 40 years, was the original curator of the San Francisco Traditional Jazz Foundation and produced CDs for the Foundation as well as GHB Records.
Among the bands he has led are John Gill’s San Francisco Jazz Band, the Minstrels of Annie Street and most recently the Yerba Buena Stompers—all of which have been dedicated to the music of Lu Watters and Turk Murphy.
Hal Smith: You play several instruments. Which one did you start on?
John Gill: When I was very young, I would guess four or five, Liberace had a show on TV..This was in my parents’ first apartment on 11th Ave. in Whitestone, NY. I loved to watch Liberace play the piano. So there was a small, low window in the kitchen and my father had taken a pencil and drew a piano keyboard on the window sill and I would sit in my little chair which was just the right height and “play along” with Liberace. So my first instrument was the window sill.
By the time I was around ten I got the itch to play the drums and after a year or so of begging I got my first drum. It was a red plastic snare drum made by Maestro. I went crazy for that drum and played it all the time. I played along with rec
