Lifestyle & Design

Mike Renzi at home

Editor's note: Mike Renzi will be appearing with the Philadelphia Pops Orchestra, and singer Jack Jones. For information and tickets, go to http://jackjones.lolipop.jp/event.html

Enter Musician Mike Renzi, Genius

The immortal composer Johannes Brahms, when asked how he created such innovative music, bursting with new sounds, chords, orchestral shadings, and tempos, said simply, “I take dictation from God.”

Watercolor of Mike & one of his Emmys

Such humility is found in the great jazz pianist and composer Mike Renzi, who is spending more time in his house near Newport these days, and delighting his loyal local fans with his extraordinary talent for inspired improvisation. He plays regularly at Greenvale Vineyards, The Chanler, The Atlantic Beach Club, Sardella’s, private parties and weddings, and at Providence’s High Hat and Sidebar. Then he’s back to New York City, or off to L.A.

On the phone with Tony Bennett

Mr. Renzi and Herr Brahms have more in common than one might think, separated as they are by centuries and genres. “I am classically trained,” Renzi states, and it shows in the passages from Mozart or Gershwin that one can discern when he improvises. He, like Brahms, creates dense chordal structures, interior lines, and soaring second melodies that are at a level of musical sophistication that most artists cannot attain.

Surrounded by his seven Emmy awards, won for musical direction and composition on Public Television’s Sesame Street and One Life to Live, and pictures of the jazz greats he’s accompanied, Renzi at home is seldom far from the keyboard of his piano, a specially made Yamaha. The phone rings, he is on the computer, then he is whipping through Bach’s “The Well-Tempered Clavier” to keep his fingers nimble, his mind agile.

Dueling pianos in Newport

Renzi, who grew up on Federal Hill in Providence, manifested extraordinary talent early on, and was a card-carrying professional by the age of 13. Now he is an internationally recognized artist, and has accompanied stellar vocalists Frank Sinatra, Lena Horne, Peggy Lee, Mel Torme, Liza Minelli, Maureen McGovern, and Sammy Davis, Jr. He has been preparing for the dedication of a new Tony Bennett-Frank Sinatra Studio in Queens. “It’s just across the street from the Kaufman Studios, where I spent seven years as musical director of Sesame Street.”

With bassist Alan Bernstein at the Atlantic Beach Club in Newport

Like jazz pianist Keith Jarrett, who seems to go into a humming trance when he plays, caressing his instrument, and looking deeply into the strings, Renzi’s relationship to the Yamaha is symbiotic. Its keyboard seems an extension of his body. He mouths lyrics as he plays engagements on his own Yamaha keyboard, a full 88-key instrument, often with his head thrown back, eyes closed. His fingers roam the keys, looking for new sounds, creating “kicks” and riffs that are all his own. And he never misses a note. Ever.

With Mac Chrupcala at the

Atlantic Beach Club

Unlike Jarrett, he frequently interacts with his audience, the vocalist, and the other musicians, drawing them in, elevating them with his energy and sheer sense of fun.

Seated in Renzi’s open, modern house, which is “vivid Zen”, informed by his collection of colorful posters, Newport Seen asked the master pianist these questions:

Talented hands at the keyboard

Q: Are you a perfectionist?
A: Somewhat perfectionistic. I try to get it perfect.

Q: How did you begin working on TV?
A. I was a studio pianist on the films The Bird Cage, Everybody Says I Love You, Broadway Danny Rose, and Biloxi Blues, when I was called to play a session on Ryan’s Hope. They needed a couple of extra cues, which I composed on the spot. I was recommended to As The World Turns, then played on All My Children, and Loving. I was asked to arrange Mel Tormé’s "Now I Know How to Swing" album. Then I got busy doing cartoon stuff from 1995 to 1997, when I was tapped by Sesame Street for the musical directorship.

Q. Who is your all-time favorite pianist?
A. Sergei Rachmaninoff, followed by Earl Wild, who does Gershwin like no one, and Keith Jarrett.

Q. Who was your favorite singer to work with?
A. Mel Tormé, for his complete musicianship.

Mike Renzi at his Yamaha piano

Q. What musicians do you most admire?
A. Andre Previn, Dave Grusin, Michele LeGrand, whom I worked with, and Clair Fischer, who was also a great teacher.

Q.What was your single greatest performance experience?
A. Too many to choose one.

What key, again?

Q. How much music did you compose for Sesame Street? How did you incorporate current trends in music (rap, hip hop, etc.) into the music?
A. A lot. When I arrived, we left the tried-and-true, "Sunny Day", and the iconic songs in place, and I composed specific new songs as the scripts required. We began incorporating modern rhythmic and sound trends into the arrangements, while keeping the melodies simple, 4 or 5 years ago.

At work composing

Q.How do you like playing with the Boston-Newport jazz musicians? How is the “ethos” different from New York or L.A.?
A. There are great players here. We have fun, and the music making is
more relaxed.

Q. What is your sport?
A. Baseball. I played it all the time growing up.

Q. Who's your team?

A. The Yankees!