My love for Liza: The Brilliant Billy Stritch

Monday 16 June 2008

The Brilliant Billy Stritch

An award-winning composer, arranger, vocalist, and jazz pianist of extraordinary range and sophistication, BILLY STRITCH breathes new life into the Great American Songbook, all the while bringing an easy sense of humor and showmanship to his performances.Born and raised in Sugar Land, Texas, Billy Stritch got his start at age 12, playing piano at his neighborhood First Presbyterian Church. Word spread about the child prodigy, and the local country club hired him for a four-year weekly gig in the piano bar. The dreaded requests came in droves, prompting Billy to rush home and learn all the requisite standards, which would subsequently fill his tip bowl! Inspiration came from jazz greats like Oscar Peterson and George Shearing, but his older sister’s love for Elton John and Billy Joel opened up a new world of pop music which informs his playing to this day. After being turned on to singers like Mel Torme, Ella Fitzgerald, Mark Murphy and Carmen McRae, Stritch started to find his own voice to use in conjunction with the piano mastery.

Read more of Billy's biography and all the latest info at; http://www.billystritch.com/

1 comment:

beautiful little fool said...: I will be seeing Liza in concert for the first time in August and if thats not amazing enough, its one of her shows this year with Billy Stritch!!; 21 June 2008 at 06:34

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"Keep your own council. And usually if you are in a stressful situation, if something is really bothering you, if you just sit down and take it easy and listen to so good music and look at the colors that are around you, you'll suddenly realize that you're not the most important thing in the world. That their are other things happening, a lot of other things going on, and it takes those pressures away, and you can put it into perspective. Whatever it is! And then get up and work it out. It's like taking a break - like if you're writing something at the piano, and you get stuck for a moment? If you get up and walk around and forget about it and go back to it, you usually can overcome it."

"Be a nice person. Just make nice to other people. I don't care what you do or what area of the world you want to work in, but for gods sake, be nice to other people. Life is too short to get picked at and -nailed! Even at school as a kid. Remember there was always that one kid who was always so nasty? First thing I'd tell my kid is, 'Don't pay any attention, that kid's a moron: you are a smart person. Don't talk to this child. If she hurts you, go away. Don't talk to her.' It's that kind of thing. And, 'Look around-keep your eyes open'."

"Most of the time it is fun being Liza. What aggravates me is when you read something about yourself that you haven't done or said. And you think 'Wow, how do people get away with doing that?'. Then there's the assumption that you don't have all the ordinary feelings that everybody else does. That you're not like everybody else, that you're special. When, in fact, you are not special, you just have a talent in a certain area, and you're lucky to have that talent. As far as everything else goes, you're exactly like everyone else."

"I like my fans. I think I would hate it without them. The only thing I do object to is that sometimes you go someplace and you can't do what you'd like to do when you get there, like the other night I was in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. After the show we went to a discotheque, and for no reason at all there were so many security guards around me that it was impossible to get up and dance. And you know I love to dance. I didn't ask to be guarded. The people around you sometimes get carried away. They become overprotective and they can overprotect you right out of a good time. Also, the people who meet me under these circumstances never get to meet me. That's the part of it I don't like."