Artist: Erroll Garner

Erroll Garner was an American jazz pianist and composer known for his swing playing and ballads. His instrumental ballad "Misty", his best-known composition, has become a jazz standard.

Garner was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1921. He attended George Westinghouse High School (as did fellow pianists Billy Strayhorn and Ahmad Jamal). Interviews with his family, music teachers, other musicians, and a detailed family tree can be found in Erroll Garner: The Most Happy Piano by James M. Doran. 

Garner moved to New York City in 1944. He briefly worked with the bassist Slam Stewart, and although not a bebop musician per se, in 1947 played with Charlie Parker on the "Cool Blues" session.

Called "one of the most distinctive of all pianists" by Scott Yanow, Garner showed that a "creative jazz musician can be very popular without watering down his music" or changing his personal style. He has been described as a "brilliant virtuoso who sounded unlike anyone else", using an "orchestral approach straight from the swing era but...open to the innovations of bop. 

Garner may have been inspired by the example of Earl Hines, a fellow Pittsburgh resident who was 18 years his senior, and there were resemblances in their elastic approach to timing and use of right-hand octaves. Garner's early recordings display the influence of the stride piano style of James P. Johnson and Fats Waller. Garner's melodic improvisations generally stayed close to the theme while employing novel chord voicings and other devices. He developed a signature style that involved his right hand playing slightly behind the beat while his left strummed a steady rhythm and punctuation, creating a carefree quality and at the same time an exciting rhythmic tension.

He would also enhance the effect by accelerating and decelerating the beat in the right hand, a device nicknamed the "Russian Dragon" (rushing and dragging). The independence of his hands also was evidenced by his masterful use of three-against-four and more complicated polyrhythms between the hands. In trio settings, he often played the 3:2 son clave rhythm pattern in his left hand chording on Latin tunes, and on swing tunes, he played the similar 12/8 Rhumba clave rhythm pattern. Garner frequently improvised whimsical introductions — often in stark contrast to the rest of the tune — that left listeners in suspense as to what the piece would be.