Nights at the Red Steinway: Notes on Jazz Piano, from the Wall Street Journal and Elsewhere

Through curated essays, readers will experience a deeply personal and engaging survey of key figures in jazz in the book that Publishers Weekly calls ＂a cheerful celebration of an uniquely American musical form.＂

Whether in the compositions of foundational figures like Jelly Roll Morton, Thomas ＂Fats＂ Waller. and Earl ＂Fatha＂ Hines; swing pioneers such as Teddy Wilson and Joe Bushkin; torch-bearers like Mary Lou Williams and her student Thelonious Monk; technical masters including Bud Powell and Bill Evans; or modern mixologists such as Sun Ra and Keith Jarrett, the piano has been the site of historic innovations in jazz, and the stage on which some of its most colorful personalities have cemented their legacies. It’s no coincidence that several legendary pianists--Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Nat King Cole--are named after royalty.

As one of the leading writers on jazz today, author, journalist, and historian Will Friedwald has witnessed over a half-century of epochal developments in the genre and the central role that the piano has played in its evolution. Nights at the Red Steinway collects key writings (from the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere) to form a deeply personal and engaging survey of key figures from Abrams to Zawinul. Irreverent when it wants to be but serious when it counts, Friedwald’s writing offers a wide-ranging, deeply considered tour through the history of jazz piano. It is an indispensable collection for fans of all stripes.

Will Friedwald writes about music and popular culture for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Sun, The New York Stage Review, Vanity Fair, Playboy magazine and other publications. He is also the host of the radio show Sing! Sing! Sing! on San Diego KSDS on Saturday mornings. He also is the author of ten books including the award-winning A Biographical Guide To The Great Jazz And Pop Singers, Sinatra: The Song Is You, Stardust Melodies, Tony Bennett: The Good Life, Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies, and Jazz Singing. He has written over 600 liner notes for compact discs, received eleven Grammy nominations, and appears frequently on television and other documentaries. He is also a consultant and curator for Apple Music. Current books: The Great Jazz And Pop Vocal Albums (Pantheon Books / Random House, November 2017), Sinatra: The Song Is You! - New Revised Edition (Chicago Review Press, May 2018) and Straighten Up and Fly Right: The Life and Music of Nat King Cole (Oxford University Press, July 2020). He studied elocution with Prof. Henry Higgins and musicology with Prof. Harold Hill.