A number of pianists have traced their musical beginnings to the player
piano.  Here's another one.

Last Saturday night I attended the first of this year's "Jazz Piano at
the Y" (92nd Street Y, New York), directed by Dick Hyman.  Naturally,
anyone Hyman invites to join him on stage has to be outrageously good.
One of the three young pianists (in their 30s, I'd guess) was Jon Weber.
Part of his blurb reads ...

   ... When he was five, his grandmother gave him a player piano
   with 2,000 song rolls and he learned to play them all.  Weber
   taught himself to play, primarily by listening to his father's
   extensive record collection. ....  In 1987 he moved to Chicago
   where he is involved in studio and television and has given
   demonstrations of stride and ragtime with the Chicago Symphony.

Much of what Weber played was in a modern jazz style, with harmonies so
dense and complex that I could not figure out many of them.  (Just an
observation, not a criticism.)  Then, at various points, he might swing
into a Waller-type stride that would blow you away.  He's someone to
watch for.

Ed Berlin¶
eabqb%qb001.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu