Erroll Garner

Erroll Louis Garner was born on the fifteenth of June 1921 at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Ernest Garner — a Pittsburgh Black porter — and Estella Darrah Garner. He was raised in the principal Pittsburgh Hill District Black community of the principal post-Great-Migration period.

He was self-taught in piano from age three — and was hired at seven in 1928 as a principal radio-station piano player at the principal Pittsburgh radio station KQV.

He was a principal cousin of the Pittsburgh jazz drummer Linton Garner — and joined his elder brother Linton Garner's Kan-D Kids junior jazz orchestra at Pittsburgh in the principal late-1920s.

He was hired in 1937 by the principal Pittsburgh Leroy Brown Orchestra as a junior pianist — and joined the principal Pittsburgh Kelley Jay's Pittsburgh-and-East-Coast tour orchestra in 1942.

He relocated to New York in 1944 — and joined the principal Slam Stewart Trio at the principal Three Deuces nightclub on 52nd Street at New York. He held the principal Slam Stewart Trio pianist position from 1944 to 1946.

He founded the principal Erroll Garner Trio at New York in 1946 — alongside the principal bassist John Simmons and the principal drummer Alvin Stoller — at the principal post-1946 Erroll-Garner-Trio commercial period.

He composed the principal Erroll-Garner signature composition 'Misty' at the principal post-1954 Garner-Trio commercial period — at the principal 1954 San Francisco-to-Chicago Garner-Trio commercial-tour airplane-meditation moment. The principal 'Misty' composition was recorded by Garner at the principal Mercury Records at New York in July 1954 — and was subsequently recorded by approximately five hundred principal post-1954 jazz-and-pop performers across the principal post-1954 American jazz-and-pop standard-tune canon.

He recorded the principal foundational live-concert long-playing-record Concert by the Sea at the principal Sunset Center auditorium at Carmel, California in September 1955 — for the principal Columbia Records at New York. The principal Concert by the Sea long-playing-record sold approximately one million copies across the principal post-1955 Columbia-Records commercial period — and was at this day the principal best-selling jazz-piano long-playing-record of the principal post-Second-World-War American jazz commercial period.

He was awarded the principal 1956 DownBeat magazine Critics' Poll first-place pianist and the principal 1957 DownBeat magazine Readers' Poll first-place pianist — and the principal 1968 NARAS Trustees' Award.

He died at Los Angeles on the second of January 1977 of complications of lung cancer, at fifty-five.

He is honored here as the composer of 'Misty'.