Michel Petrucciani - The Obituaries

 © Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“There is a great difference between what you can play in music or how you can play in music.  Someone can  play all  the right  notes of  a melody,  but without  having a good understanding of how to play them or how to make them sound well on an instrument, there will be something missing in the music. For a musician it is therefore valuable to have good control over his instrument in order to be capable of creating the sound he or she wants.. The creation of sound on a piano by touch is a very delicate subject and can be considered an art by itself. In the early twentieth century in classical piano music there arose national piano schools which had their own thoughts about piano touch, technique, pedagogy and chosen repertoire.

(Lourenço, 2010, p. 6).

In jazz piano music this subject of touch is sometimes overlooked, since there is so much else to learn about improvisation and players tend to focus on what notes to play.

Michel  Petrucciani  was someone  who  had this  great touch  and  control  over  his instrument and was well aware of the importance of having a good sound. When Petrucciani played the piano, his sound and touch were instantly recognizable and it would impress the listener.”

Understanding Michel Petrucciani’s Sound

A Search for the Sound and Touch of a Jazz Pianist

Philippe Ramaekers

Student No: 0927821

Main subject teacher: Frank Giebels

Research Coach: Frans Gulikers

Master of Music

Conservatorium Maastricht – Zuyd Hogeschool

Maastricht, May 2016

Each piece of information about Michel Petrucciani provides new perspectives and fresh insights into the qualities that made him unique as an artist. Sadly, this is also true of the following obituaries.

Michel Petrucciani, Romantic Of Jazz Piano, Is Dead at 36

By Stephen Holden New York TimesJan. 7, 1999

 

“Michel Petrucciani, a French jazz pianist and composer with an international following whose keyboard virtuosity earned him comparisons to Art Tatum and Bill Evans, died yesterday at Beth Israel Hospital in Manhattan. He was 36 and lived in Manhattan.

The cause was a pulmonary infection, said a representative of his French record company, Francis Dreyfus Music.

Mr. Petrucciani was a national hero in France, and his records were best sellers in Europe. The French President, Jacques Chirac, was among the many who paid tribute to him yesterday, praising his ability to ''renew jazz, giving himself up to his art with passion, courage and musical genius.'' He called him an ''example for everyone.''

The career of Mr. Petrucciani, who was considered one of the great romantics of the jazz piano, flourished in spite of a severe physical disability. The pianist was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, also known as ''glass bones,'' a disease that stunted his growth (he was only three feet tall and weighed barely 50 pounds) and weakened his bones. Mr. Petrucciani had to be carried onto the stage, and he used a special attachment to work the sustaining pedal of the piano.

 

The ailment didn't affect his hands, however, and he played with a seemingly inexhaustible vigor and enthusiasm.

 

Mr. Petrucciani was born to Italian parents in Montpellier, France. His family was musical, and as a child he played the drums in a band with his father, Tony, a guitarist, and his brother Louis, a bassist. After studying classical music for eight years, he turned to jazz full time because he loved to improvise and wanted to write his own music.

He began his professional career when he was 15, playing for the drummer and vibraphonist Kenny Clarke.

Moving to Paris, he recorded his first album at 17, and he was appearing regularly at European jazz festivals while still a teen-ager. After a visit to New York he toured France in a duo with the saxophonist Lee Konitz, with whom he recorded an album of duets.

While in California in 1981, Mr. Petrucciani was discovered by the saxophonist Charles Lloyd, who made him a member of his quartet. They toured Europe and recorded an album, ''Montreux '82.'' One of his most acclaimed early recordings, ''100 Hearts'' (Concord), was an album of solos.

Between 1986 and 1994, he made seven albums for Blue Note Records, including ''Power of Three'' (with Wayne Shorter and Jim Hall), and an acclaimed album of original songs, ''Michel Plays Petrucciani'' (Blue Note).

In 1994 he was made a knight of the Legion of Honor in Paris.

For all the comparisons to Bill Evans, Mr. Petrucciani had found his own style, which was more aggressive, fuller and sunnier than that of his idol and incorporated secondary influences as disparate as McCoy Tyner and Debussy.

A marriage to Gilda Butta, a pianist, ended in divorce.

He is survived by his companion, Isabelle, his publicist said, and by a son, Alexandre, and a stepson, Rachid Roperch, both of Paris, from a previous relationship.

At the time of his death, he was hoping to set up an international jazz school in France.

''It's my life's work,'' he said. ''Jazz is dying out.''

Michel Petrucciani: a tiny man with a towering talent

The jazz pianist, who suffered from 'glass bone disease' and only ever grew to 99cms, communicated the essence of human frailty

Michel Radford, Thursday 12 May 2011 The Guardian

“Small man, big talent. I had not heard of Michel Petrucciani before I started making a film about him; nor had I made a documentary for 25 years. But every documentary is a journey of discovery, and I finished it with a sense of wonder.

Petrucciani was born in Orange, in the south of France, in 1962, with every bone in his body broken. Diagnosed with osteogenesis imperfecta – or "glass bone disease" – he only ever grew to 99cm. He could not walk and was not expected to live beyond the age of 20. His bones fractured constantly. But he was blessed with two things: he had immense charisma, and he was a musical prodigy.

He never went to school. He stayed in his room for his whole childhood, and played jazz piano for 10 hours a day, under the guidance of his tyrannical father, a local musician and jazz fanatic. By the age of 13 he sounded, according to one critic, "like a 38-year-old world-weary black man lost in a piano bar somewhere in Mexico".

Petrucciani became famous locally, and started to make records, but he dreamed of America. So on his 18th birthday he upped and left with a friend, whom he persuaded to carry him. He ended up in California where by chance he met jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd. The meeting was to change his life. Stunned by his talent, Lloyd came out of retirement and they toured together for the next four years: and Michel, aged 20, married his first wife.

Petrucciani was immensely attractive to women. And he knew it. It wasn't good enough for him to find a woman he liked (and who could carry him), he had to betray them (hundreds of times if possible). Drugs, women, food: his appetites were enormous, his desire to experience everything insatiable. He lived fast, too fast: but he wanted to taste it all.

It was when he went to New York that he really found himself. In the 80s it was a jazz mecca, and all the greats were playing there. And Petrucciani was playing with them. He signed to Blue Note Records (the first European to do so) and made albums with, among others, Wayne Shorter, Roy Haynes, Jim Hall, John Abercrombie, Jack DeJohnette. And still his body broke. Even while he was playing, tendons snapped, shoulder blades fractured, fingers shattered. He just continued, seemingly oblivious to the pain.

In late 1989 he met the woman who was to become the mother of his child, Alexandre, who was born with the same condition as him. Petrucciani was devastated; but at the same time, it was an affirmation, the acceptance that he craved. "I don't regret being born," he said. With his new family he returned to France, and it was there that he became a real star. His compositions became more elegant, his style of playing more simple and profound. The series of records he made at that time are some of the finest in the history of jazz.

He could not keep away from New York, however, and he couldn't keep away from the fast lane. By now he was playing more than 200 shows a year, to audiences of thousands, and his body was deteriorating fast, ravaged by the disease that was slowly asphyxiating him. In January 1999 he was rushed to hospital in New York City. He was 36 years old. "Two years older than Charlie Parker," as he liked to point out. He didn't recover. He is buried in Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, next to the tomb of Chopin.”

Was he one of the greats of jazz? I think so. What he communicated was the essence of humanity itself, with all its frailties and contradictions and imperfections. If that's not great art, what is?”

Michael Radford's film Michel Petrucciani screens at the Cannes film festival on 14 May.

Obituary: Michel Petrucciani

Steve Voce The Independent

Sunday 23 October 2011

“"MY PHILOSOPHY," said Michel Petrucciani, "is to have a really good time and never to let anything stop me from doing what I want to do."

Nothing unusual about that, one might think. But, since Petrucciani was an adult standing only three feet high and weighing 65 pounds, one might expect his ambitions to have been, so to speak, closer to the ground. Had he not aspired to achievements above his station, he might have chosen to play something more convenient such as the harmonica rather than the piano, and music would have missed one of the most powerful jazz pianists of the last two decades.

One of the many remarkable things about Petrucciani was not so much the fact that when he played he overcame his handicaps, but that one was not aware of their existence. He could do anything, and more than most of the best players of the day. He played across the full span of the grand piano's keyboard and, despite his tiny legs, was able to make full use of the instrument's pedals - the loud one was of particular importance to him.

He was one of the most passionate and extrovert of soloists and the aggressive hurdling of his up-tempo work established an exciting bond with his audience that pushed aside any thought that he might deserve sympathy. He certainly never looked for it. On the other hand, one could not regard as normal the sight of the half-moon of face peeping over the top of the instrument - which was all most audiences saw of him - and when the music carried him away his head looked like nothing so much as an apple bobbing in the ocean.

The son of the Sicilian jazz guitarist Antoine Petrucciani and his French wife Anne, Michel was born, in 1962, with osteogenesis imperfecta, more often known as glass bones disease. During his life he suffered literally hundreds of bone fractures. Raised in Montelimar in a jazz-filled home, he could hum Wes Montgomery solos as soon as he could talk. He played a toy set of drums in the family band, along with his brothers Philippe, who was also a guitarist, and Louis, who played the bass.

Petrucciani's ambition to become a pianist was fired when he saw a televised Duke Ellington concert when he was four. As a result his father bought him a toy piano but Petrucciani was so frustrated by its limitations that he smashed it with a hammer. "It was not the sound I had heard on TV," he said.

Antoine, who had a job at a nearby military base, brought home a battered piano left behind by British soldiers. "They were guys who had got drunk and poured beer in the keys, but the piano sounded real," said Petrucciani. When he was seven and his playing had improved, his father bought a better piano from a local doctor.

"When I was young," he said, "I thought the keyboard looked like teeth. It was as though it was laughing at me. You have to be strong enough to make the piano feel little. That took a lot of work. The piano was strictly for classical studies - no jazz - for eight years. Sure, I resisted the tuition, but it paid off. Absolutely. Studying orthodox piano teaches discipline and develops technique. You learn to take your instrument seriously. But I did get tired of contests and competitions. The classical milieu was a little too bourgeois for my taste."

Petrucciani once saw Arthur Rubinstein play. "His fingers moved so fast that it was like a Bugs Bunny cartoon. I realised then that I'd never be as good as that, so I stuck to being a jazz musician." When he was 10 Petrucciani began to absorb the piano playing of Bill Evans, who became the major influence on the first part of his career. He also retained his love of the works of Bach, Debussy, Ravel, Mozart and Bartok.

His first major professional appearance was at the annual outdoor jazz festival in the French town of Cliousclat when he was 13. "That year's guest, trumpeter Clark Terry, needed a pianist for his set. Someone sent for me and Clark thought that I was just a kid and that someone must be playing a joke on him. So, kidding around, he picked up his horn and played mock bullfight music. I said, ‘Let's play the blues.' After I'd played for a minute he said 'Give me five!' and gave me a hug, and that was it."

Although he had to be carried on stage for his performances, Petrucciani had powerful, long-fingered hands. When he travelled he took with him an extender that his family had devised to enable him to work the foot pedals. Already playing jobs all over France and at European festivals, he moved to Paris when he was 16, and in 1980 made his first album, Flash, with a trio that included his brother Louis. By now a star, he toured France to play duets with the American alto saxophonist Lee Konitz and later recorded with him.

Musically Paris was an ideal city for a young jazz star. Petrucciani had problems there. "It was mostly to do with drugs and weird women, but I was lucky and got out safe." When he was 18 he left for New York. He didn't have the cash to pay for his air ticket, but his father later made good the bad cheque. When he had earned enough money from working in New York, Petrucciani left for California, where he met his wife, Gilda Butta.

He also encountered Charles Lloyd, a tenor saxophonist who had been in vogue during the Sixties when jazz and rock had first abutted. Lloyd had then led a quartet that had included Keith Jarrett and Jack deJohnette, but had stopped playing when his audiences decided that his band was more fashionable than he was. Now, 15 years later, he was to come out of retirement. Petrucciani went to Lloyd's house in Big Sur with a friend who was a drummer. "I didn't even know who Charles Lloyd was. He asked me to play the piano and decided he wanted to play with me." After generating rave reviews up and down the West Coast, they worked across the world together for the next two years and their appearance at the Montreux Jazz Festival, issued as an album, won them the 1982 Prix d'Excellence.

In 1983 the Los Angeles Times chose Petrucciani as Jazz Man of the Year and the Italian Government Cultural Office, who presumably knew about such things, selected him as "Best European Jazz Musician". The French, not to be outdone, awarded him the prestigious Prix Django Reinhardt. In 1984 his solo album 100 Hearts achieved the French equivalent of a Grammy award: the Grand Prix du Disque - Prix Boris Vian. The then-virtuoso trumpeter Freddie Hubbard invited the pianist to join his All Star band and Petrucciani also worked with the tenorists Joe Henderson and Wayne Shorter and guitarists Jim Hall and John Abercrombie, all from the front rank of American jazz musicians. In 1986 he recorded at Montreux with Shorter and Hall.

From 1989 to 1992 Petrucciani worked with a quartet, often adding a synthesiser player, Adam Holzman. Petrucciani had retained his love of Duke Ellington, and his idea was that the synthesiser could bring the sound of a big band, Ellington's, to his quartet. Latterly he had worked as a soloist, moving beyond the Bill Evans influence to draw inspiration from the work of Keith Jarrett and to display an abundance of technique and power to match Oscar Peterson in his prime.

"I don't believe in geniuses," he said. "I believe in hard work. Ever since I was a child I knew what I wanted to do and worked for that. But I have so much to do. I've done albums and worked with a lot of great musicians and I've still got time ahead of me to do so much more. It's very difficult for me to talk about myself and what has happened; so many different events. Eventually, when I get to be 75, I'll write a book on my deathbed.

"Sometimes I think someone upstairs saved me from being ordinary."

Michel Petrucciani, pianist and composer: born Orange, France 28 December 1962; married (one son and one adopted son); died New York 6 January 1999.”