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 Young, Coleman Hawkins, and Ben Webster. Because he spent his later years playing solo piano in Los Angeles area nightclubs and recording for small labels, he did not receive the acclaim that he deserved.
On his solo piano record Johnny Guarnieri Plays Harry Warren which was recorded in 1973, Guarnieri performs a dozen Warren songs not included in the list above. He begins with an exciting hot stride version of “Nagasaki,” at one point doubling the tempo which puts the song at an impossible speed that would have impressed Art Tatum. Having proven his mastery of the piano, Guarnieri gets into a romantic mood with “Shadow Waltz” and “September In The Rain.” At the time he said that he rarely had a chance to play in that fashion in loud clubs.
Guarnieri tears into “Lulu’s Back In Town” in 5/4 time. He alternates rapid romps (including “With Plenty Of Money And You” and “Lullaby Of Broadway”) with slower renditions of “You Must Have Been A Beautiful Baby,” “I Only Have Eyes For You,” a melancholy “Boulevard Of Broken Dreams,” “I Found A Million Dollar Baby,” “You’ll Never Know,” and “The More I See You”; the latter two songs sound like new pieces due to him taking them in 5/4.
Johnny Guarnieri deserves great credit for ignoring musical trends and instead playing standards in his timeless swing style. And Harry Warren, who did so much to add gems to the Great American Songbook, deserves to be mentioned in the same sentence with George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter and the other masterful composers. The world would have been much poorer without his songs.
Johnny Guarnieri Plays Harry Warren
Solo Art SACD-173
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