Johnny Guarnieri Plays Harry Warren

Johnny Guarnieri and Harry Warren had one main thing in common. When one thinks of the great jazz pianists, Guarnieri is often overlooked while lists of the top contributors to the Great American Songbook invariably leave out Warren. This is despite the fact that they were both musical giants. Harry Warren (1893-1981) often misses the songwriters list because he wrote for American films rather than for the theater. In his career he composed over 800 songs (500 were published) and these include dozens of standards including “Jeepers Creepers,” “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” “Forty-Second Street,” “I’ll String Along With You,” “You’ll Never Know,” “The More I See You,” “I Only Have Eyes For You,” “At Last,” “There Will Never Be Another You,” “Serenade In Blue,” “We’re In The Money,” and “Rose Of The Rio Grande” among many others. Johnny Guarnieri (1917-1985) was a superb pianist who could play stride, boogie-woogie, and swing as well as anyone. He could closely imitate Fats Waller (even taking occasional vocals), Art Tatum and Count Basie, and later in life he enjoyed playing unlikely material in 5/4 time. Guarnieri worked with the big bands of Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw (switching to harpsichord for classic recordings with Shaw’s Gramercy Five) and recorded with the who’s who of small-group swing in the mid-1940s including Lester