Piano Spheres to Stream Roger Kellaway Trio

Jazz pianist Roger Kellaway at his instrument (from the Piano Spheres event page for his streamed concert)

Piano Spheres will wrap up streaming its 2021 Summer Jazz Series with a live video recording of pianist Roger Kellaway. Kellaway has been a prolific composer, known better for his work in the “entertainment sector,” rather than the concert hall. His best known composition, “Remembering You,” is not known through its title. Rather, it was the closing theme for the television series All in the Family. He also transformed commercial themes by Stan Applebaum and Sid Woloshin into the score for George Balanchine’s ballet “PAMTGG.” This probably drew the worst reviews of any ballet that Balanchine created, probably because the title was the abbreviation of “Pan Am Makes the Going Great.”

More recently Kellaway seems to have focused on jazz piano trio performances. He celebrated his 80th birthday on November 1, 2019. A little over a month later I was writing about his recently-released album The Many Open Minds of Roger Kellaway, which was a far more satisfying listening experience with straight-ahead accounts of such composers as Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, and Billy Strayhorn. Kellaway led a trio whose other members were Bruce Forman on guitar and Dan Lutz on bass. His Piano Spheres gig will also be a trio performance. Forman will again be his guitarist, joined this time by John Clayton on bass.

Piano Spheres is a free subscription service. Subscription involves providing an electronic mail address. URLs for the Piano Spheres YouTube Channel will then be sent with information about future performances. As might be expected, there will be requests for donations, which will be tax-deductible. The YouTube channel will remain active after the conclusion of the Summer Jazz Series, and electronic mail will announce recitals during the fall and spring seasons. The YouTube Web page for Kellaway’s performance will become active at 5 p.m. this Saturday, August 14.