Content area
Full Text
Covering the scores of Broadway musicals in a jazz mien was not a new idea in 1994. It's the kind of album I grew up loving. In some cases I liked them even better than the original cast album, recalls Bruce Kimmel, the driving force behind more than 100 cast albums and compilations for the likes of Bay Cities,
It was, however, Kimmel's ambitious brainchild to set all of Stephen Sondheim's scores to a new downbeat. He was searching for an arranger when Steve Lawrence's son David recommended Terry Trotter. Kimmel got one of Trotter's CDs, and before the first track was over, he agreed. ???It was a perfect fit!???
The son of a classical pianist, Terry Trotter started playing piano at the age of 4, started losing interest at about 13, ???and then my mom found a piano teacher whose style was very Teddy Wilson jazz-inspired. I fell in love with jazz. Then after studying it for a couple of years, I really fell in love with classical music, too.???
Sage advice from his friend Leonid Hambro, a decade-long touring partner of Victor Borge as well as a longtime pianist for the New York Philharmonic, helped him make a decision. ???Leonid said, ???You could probably get into the top 5 percent of classical pianists, but that's not going to be enough to survive. You really have to be in the top 1 or 2 percent to make it there. But as a jazz pianist you can do so much more. And you can still play classical music.??? So that pretty much cinched it for me.???
Trotter's classical training and quick skills made him a popular studio and tour musician for many years, playing and recording with Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé, Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, as well as 12 years with Natalie Cole. During his Steve and Eydie era, Trotter first experienced another musical Steve in the Broadway production...