Tom Roberts | |
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 Roberts c. 2022 | |
| Born | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
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| Website | tomrobertspiano |
Tom Roberts (born 1962) is an American pianist, composer, and arranger, a specialist in the stride piano style, [1] [2] and a expert on early jazz piano and jazz recordings. Tom is a master of all early jazz piano styles including ragtime, boogie woogie, swing, New Orleans jazz, and Harlen Stride piano.
Tom Roberts grew up in Swisshelm Park, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and was the eldest of three brothers. His grandparents lived across the street and Roberts learned to play piano on his grandmother's player piano. [1] He graduated from Duquesne University and taught high school music at Schenley High School [3] for three years while continuing to pursue his goal of performing jazz. After giving Leon Redbone an audition tape, [4] he caught the man's attention and Redbone offered Roberts a contract to go on tour with him. In Roberts's first performance on that tour, he played on stage at The Tonight Show [3]
Following his first tour with Redbone, Roberts moved to New Orleans [3] in 1989 where he subsequently performed in all the major jazz clubs in the French Quarter including Preservation Hall, as well as on many New Orleans riverboats. Most notably, he performed with The Silver Leaf Jazz Band, Jacques Gauthes' Creole Rice Jazz Band, Eddie Bayard's Steamboat Stompers on the steamboat "Natchez", Barry Wratten's Pelican Jazz Band, The Original Camellia Jazz Band, The Crescent City Rhythm Kings, and Tim Laughlin's Jazz Band. He was unable to tour with Redbone during this time since he would have risked losing his position working at the local venues in New Orleans. Roberts commented that he would regularly play piano for more than ten hours each day.
In 1994, Roberts relocated to Annapolis, Maryland. He lived there for five years and once again toured with Leon Redbone. [3] [5] During his stay there, Roberts released his first solo album, Night Cap, in 1999.
In late 1999, Roberts relocated to New York City. In 2003, he performed twice at New York's Carnegie Hall, [1] once with Skitch Henderson and again with The New York Pops. Also in 2003, he was featured both as a solo artist and also with Dick Hyman at the Jazz In July series at New York's 92nd St. Y. He lived in New York through 2006.
While there, he also arranged and performed at Lincoln Center under Phil Schapp in a concert showing the evolution of the big band.
Roberts became the pianist for Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks and was on several albums they released during that time period. He was the pianist for The Nighthawks until they took a temporary hiatus in 2006. While living in New York, Roberts also continued to serve as the pianist and musical director for Leon Redbone.
Upon returning to Pittsburgh in 2006, Roberts continued to tour worldwide with bands from New Orleans and New York such as Leon Redbone, the Original Dixieland Jazzband, and the Louisiana Repertory Jazz Ensemble.
In April 2006, Roberts premiered his extended composition "The Poetry of Jazz" in Pittsburgh. It was written in tandem with Joe Negri, setting the poems of Langston Hughes to original jazz compositions written in the styles from the twenties through modern day. [6]
Roberts formed the Allegheny City Ragtime Orchestra in order to share lost ragtime music, especially music written by local Pittsburgh composers, with a contemporary audience. Roberts is a music historian with a special focus on the early jazz era and Pittsburgh jazz musicians. [1] He has been a frequent guest on National Public Radio and has published a number of articles in the magazine Piano Today. In order to share some of his knowledge, he started the Hot Club of Pittsburgh where he shares his extensive knowledge of jazz. Pittsburgh's City of Asylum has featured Roberts's Hot Club presentations. Roberts continues to give these presentations to groups around the country.
Roberts collaborated with Rick Sebak to provide music for his Pittsburgh-based documentaries Nebby: Rick Sebak's Tales of Greater Pittsburgh.
Roberts and his band, the Red Beans and Rice Combo including Dave Klug [7] (artist, illustrator, and musician) and Wayne "Wayno" Honath (the current cartoonist of the Bizarro (comic strip)), was featured in Rick Seback's 2020 holiday special, Happy Holidays In Pittsburgh.
On September 19, 1998, Roberts performed on Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion with Leon Redbone. He also performed with Redbone on The Statler Brothers Show on TNN [8] In 2006, Roberts wrote a number of arrangements for Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra for a concert featuring the music of Louis Armstrong that took place that October. He also arranged music for the syndicated Public Radio International show Riverwalk Jazz, and for Live From the Landing with the Jim Cullum Jazz Band. In 2008, Roberts was commissioned to write arrangements of Oscar Levant's Blame It On My Youth and a medley of Earl Hines compositions for The Pittsburgh Concert Chorale to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of Pittsburgh.
Roberts earned international recognition as an expert in the stride piano style [1] and has performed throughout the United States and Europe. In both 2001 and 2009, [9] he was the featured pianist at the International Stride Piano Summit in Zurich, Switzerland.
In our humble opinion, Tom Roberts is without question one of the finest pianists today in the exciting Harlem stride piano style...
— JazzBeat Magazine
Tom Roberts has recorded over 40 albums including Any Time with Leon Redbone, [3] Streets and Scenes of New Orleans with the Silver Leaf Jazz Band, Night Cap, Roberts Plays Roberts, The Lion's Den, and Charlie Caranicas & Tom Roberts - Move Over.
Martin Scorsese heard Roberts perform with The Nighthawks and asked him to arrange and perform music [1] for the soundtrack for his film The Aviator, starring Leonardo di Caprio. Most of the scenes with "live" music feature Roberts as the pianist, however, he doesn't appear on screen. Roberts later wrote several pieces for the period film De-Lovely.
In 2012, Roberts was contacted by the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh to perform live accompaniment for a series of silent films they planned to screen. Initially, Roberts turned down the offer explaining that when those films were first released, only very small venues used improvisational pianists to accompany films. All larger venues employed orchestras to accompany films. The orchestras did not improvise and instead played from score sheets the film company recommended for each movie scene. Roberts suggested that the museum have entirely new scores written to accompany the films. The museum agreed to his suggestion and asked Roberts to write scores for the events, the first of which took place in 2012.
Roberts went on to compose scores for various silent movie events worldwide. His score for One A.M. first debuted at the Leopold Mozart Conservatory in Augsburg, Germany in 2013. Roberts has written and performed multiple scores to accompany silent films by Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Alfred Hitchcock, and F. W. Murnau.
Roberts composed a score for the first annual National Silent Movie Day on September 29, 2021, for the silent film version of Hitchcock's Blackmail (1929 film). Chad Hunter, of Video Trust and the Pittsburgh Silent Film Society, initially conceived of the national event with film archivists Brandee B. Cox, of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Film Archive, and Steven K. Hill, of the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Martin Scorsese promoted the event and drew national attention to it.
In 2022, Roberts wrote an original score for the 100th anniversary of the film Nosferatu by F. W. Murnau which he debuted in February 2022 at the Harris Theater in Pittsburgh for two sold-out performances.
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, complex chords, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. Jazz has roots in European harmony and African rhythmic rituals.
Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe, known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer. Morton was jazz's first arranger, proving that a genre rooted in improvisation could retain its essential characteristics when notated. His composition "Jelly Roll Blues", published in 1915, was one of the first published jazz compositions. He also claimed to have invented the genre.
The Original Dixieland Jass Band (ODJB) was a Dixieland jazz band that made the first jazz recordings in early 1917. Their "Livery Stable Blues" became the first jazz record ever issued. The group composed and recorded many jazz standards, the most famous being "Tiger Rag". In late 1917, the spelling of the band's name was changed to Original Dixieland Jazz Band.
Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller was an American jazz pianist, organist, composer, violinist, singer, and comedic entertainer. His innovations in the Harlem stride style laid much of the basis for modern jazz piano. His best-known compositions, "Ain't Misbehavin'" and "Honeysuckle Rose", were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1984 and 1999. Waller copyrighted over 400 songs, many of them co-written with his closest collaborator, Andy Razaf. Razaf described his partner as "the soul of melody... a man who made the piano sing... both big in body and in mind... known for his generosity... a bubbling bundle of joy". It is likely that he composed many more popular songs than he has been credited with: when in financial difficulties he had a habit of selling songs to other writers and performers who claimed them as their own.
Joseph Russel Robinson was an American ragtime, dixieland, and blues pianist and composer. He was a member of the Original Dixieland Jass Band.
Lawrence James Shields was an early American dixieland jazz clarinetist. He was a member of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, the first jazz band to record commercially.
Tom P. Brown, sometimes known by the nickname Red Brown, was an American dixieland jazz trombonist. He also played string bass professionally.
James Price Johnson was an American pianist and composer. A pioneer of stride piano, he was one of the most important pianists in the early era of recording, and like Jelly Roll Morton, one of the key figures in the evolution of ragtime into what was eventually called jazz. Johnson was a major influence on Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, and Fats Waller, who was his student.
Stride jazz piano, often shortened to stride, is a jazz piano style that arose from ragtime players. Prominent stride pianists include James P. Johnson, Willie "the Lion" Smith, Fats Waller, Luckey Roberts, Mrs Mills and Mary Lou Williams.
Charles Luckyth Roberts, better known as Luckey Roberts, was an American composer and stride pianist who worked in the jazz, ragtime, and blues styles.
James Carroll Booker III was a New Orleans rhythm and blues keyboardist born in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Booker's unique style combined rhythm and blues with jazz standards. Musician Dr. John described Booker as "the best black, gay, one-eyed junkie piano genius New Orleans has ever produced." Flamboyant in personality and having an extraordinary technical facility, he was known as "the Black Liberace".
John Arthur "Jaki" Byard was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer, and arranger. Mainly a pianist, he also played tenor and alto saxophones, among several other instruments. He was known for his eclectic style, incorporating everything from ragtime and stride to free jazz.
George Winston is an American pianist, guitarist, harmonicist, and record producer. He was born in Michigan and raised mainly in Montana, as well as Mississippi and Florida. He is best known for his solo piano recordings. Each of several of his albums from the early 1980s have sold millions of copies. He plays in three styles: the melodic approach he developed that he calls "rural folk piano"; stride piano, primarily inspired by Thomas "Fats" Waller and Teddy Wilson; and his primary interest, New Orleans R&B piano, influenced by James Booker, Professor Longhair, and Henry Butler.
Jazz piano is a collective term for the techniques pianists use when playing jazz. The piano has been an integral part of the jazz idiom since its inception, in both solo and ensemble settings. Its role is multifaceted due largely to the instrument's combined melodic and harmonic capabilities. For this reason it is an important tool of jazz musicians and composers for teaching and learning jazz theory and set arrangement, regardless of their main instrument. By extension the phrase 'jazz piano' can refer to similar techniques on any keyboard instrument.
"Tiger Rag" is a jazz standard that was recorded and copyrighted by the Original Dixieland Jass Band in 1917. It is one of the most recorded jazz compositions. In 2003, the 1918 recording of "Tiger Rag" was entered into the U.S. Library of Congress National Recording Registry.
Richard Enos "Butch" Thompson was an American jazz pianist and clarinetist best known for his ragtime and stride performances.
Donald Tyson Ewell was an American jazz stride pianist. He worked with Sidney Bechet, Kid Ory, George Lewis, George Brunis, Muggsy Spanier, and Bunk Johnson.
New Orleans is a 1947 American musical romance film starring Arturo de Córdova and Dorothy Patrick, and directed by Arthur Lubin. Though it features a rather conventional plot, the film is noteworthy both for casting jazz legends Billie Holiday as a singing maid romantically involved with bandleader Louis Armstrong, and extensive playing of New Orleans-style Dixieland jazz: over twenty songs are featured in whole or part.
Terry Waldo is an American pianist, composer, and historian of early jazz, blues, and stride music, and is best known for his contribution to ragtime and his role in reviving interest in this form, starting in the 1970s. Says Wynton Marsalis in his introduction to Waldo's book: "He teaches Ragtime, he talks about Ragtime, he plays it, he embodies it, he lives it, and he keeps Ragtime alive." The book, This is Ragtime, published in 1976, grew out of the series of the same title that Waldo produced for NPR in 1974. Waldo is also a theatrical music director, producer, vocalist, and teacher. He is noted for his wit and humor in performance, as "a monologist in the dry, Middle Western tradition." Eubie Blake describes his first impression of Waldo's performance thus: "I died laughing...that's one of the hardest things to do—make people laugh. Terry's ability to do this, combined with his musicianship, actually reminds me of Fats Waller."
This is a timeline documenting events of Jazz in the year 1916.
Now Mr. Roberts himself is one of the top practitioners of stride piano, having played everywhere from Carnegie Hall in New York to Buena Vista Coffee
Pianist, composer, and arranger Tom Roberts is one of the leading exponents of early jazz piano in the world today
a Schenley High School music teacher
For Thursday's show, Redbone will bring along Tony (sic) Roberts on piano
Redbone continues to make television appearances. He just finished taping a Statler Brothers show that will air on Feb. 15.
.Tom Roberts Night Cap Solo Art SACD-121
The Pittsburgh event is a showing at Row House Cinema of the silent version of Alfred Hitchcock's "Blackmail" (1929), accompanied live by Pittsburgh-based pianist Tom Roberts. Roberts' resume includes writing the score for Scorsese's 2004 film "The Aviator." The event is sold out.
A new score for the film composed and performed by Michael Johnsen (electronics) and Tom Roberts (piano) will be debuted live.
...listen to Roberts' original scores performed live against two of Chaplin's films—Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914), the first on-screen appearance of Chaplin's "Little Tramp" character, and The Pawnshop (1916).
Tom Roberts can ramble about the sublime intricacies of Charlie Chaplin films, like he's Quentin Tarantino taking an interviewer through a lengthy aside about Italian action movies or Kevin Smith presenting his latest epiphany about Return of the Jedi. Take, for instance, 1916's The Pawn Shop.
Tom has composed new musical scores for The Charlie Chaplin films One A.M. and The Rink through a commission from The Pittsburgh Symphony. The scores were premiered at The Leopold Mozart Conservatory in Augsburg Germany and then performed in Pittsburgh at Heinz Hall in May 2012 as part of the Pittsburgh Symphony Paris Festival The City of Light.
Live piano accompaniment by Pittsburgh's own Tom Roberts.
A live score for the film composed and performed by Tom Roberts.