Conrad Askland

Visit pianist Page Cavanaugh at http://www.pagecavanaugh.com . Page has celebrated his 85th birthday and is still going strong doing gigs.

Watch the Page Cavanaugh 85th Birthday on YouTube.com – or search YouTube for “Page Cavanaugh”.

The last time I saw him was around 1993. I was playing keyboards for a country band in Los Angeles and saw his name on the marquee at a club down the street. On my night off went in to hear him. He sounded fantastic with his trio. And I was very happy that he remembered me. You see, Page was my first jazz piano teacher and the story of those lessons is pretty awesome.

When I was twelve years old my family took a three week cruise down in the Virgin Islands and through the Panama Canal. I played piano and french horn at the time. In fact, I was so concerned about “losing my lip” in those three weeks that I brought my french horn with me to practice.

On the cruise ship the kids could hang out in the bar. And in that bar I heard the most amazing piano player – Page Cavanaugh. That’s all I wanted to do was sit in there and hear him play. My Dad got to be friends with him and hired him to give me piano lessons. At the time it was around my second year of playing piano. So I would meet Page on the off hours and he taught me about jazz, creativity and how to love a piano.

I still remember when he asked me to play a song – and about all I could play was “Fur Elise” by Beethoven. So he says to me, “That was great – what would happen if you did this to it?” And he started to improvise a jazz rendition of the piece. For a twelve year old kid, this was a whole new world I didn’t even know existed. I had never heard jazz music live, much less got to listen to complete sets of a jazz trio in a bar.

I became Page’s tag-along – and he brought me to the cruise ship crew parties (which were very wild to say the least) and behind the scenes to meet the other artists and tech crew. In this day and age, these kind of things might be frowned upon – but I had a blast and whole heartedly thank Page for letting me see what the scene was all about.

We lived in Seattle at the time and Page would visit our house when he was in port from other cruise ship gigs. It was great for me, because he was able to check in and give me tips as I progressed.

Page Cavanaugh is about the most fun person you’ll ever meet. And he sure has inspired and guided a lot of artists. Page let me know what I would be in for if I decided to be a musician. And that was worth it’s weight in gold. Thank you Page!

Bob Morgan, Chick Parnell, Page Cavanaugh circa 1950

BIOGRAPHY OF PAGE CAVANAUGH

By the time he was ten years old he had become interested in the piano and by his teenage years was an accomplished player on the keyboards. His first steady work was in the territory band, the Ernie Williamson Orchestra, in the late nineteen thirties . During the Second World War stationed in Sacramento, California, , Cavanaugh was the replacement pianist for an Army trio called The Three Sergeants, and in that group made the acquaintance of Al Viola and Lloyd Pratt who would form a musical partnership after their military service was over. By the mid forties, now based in Los Angeles, the small unit called The Page Cavanaugh Trio began to get club work in the Southern California area. They patterned their musical style after the King Cole Trio and developed a unique vocal sound which consisted of soft voiced unison singing. Soon they were garnering great reviews and spreading popularity. They began recording for small West Coast labels and soon found a few musical spots in motion pictures.

PC with Lloyd Pratt (bass) in Doris Day film debut, “Romance on the High Seas” (1948)

PAGE CAVANAUGH CELEBRATES 85th BIRTHDAY

The guests included Tom Hatton, Steve Tyrell, Army Archerd, Pinky Winters, Ray Evans, Jack Reilly, Corky Hale, Peter Levinson, Marilyn King, Nancy Sinatra Sr. and Nancy Sinatra Jr., Morris Diamond and Peter Menefee, to name just a few.

A cake was presented and Cavanaugh cut the first slice. Accompanied by bassist Phil Mallory, Cavanaugh sang “Three Little Bears,” “My Last Affair,” “Tea For Two,” “San Francisco” and “It’s Magic.”

Page in Vegas 1970s

TV show with Chico Marx, 1950s

Christmas – 1949

More recent photo of Page

September 2004 – “New Age” is a term that’s lost a bit of it’s luster over the years. In theology it’s better represented by “New Thought”, but in music the term New Age still holds to describe a genre of instrumental music that is thoughtful, usually instrumental, and a great background for keeping with our own thoughts.

New Age music has it’s roots with the Impressionist music movement around the 1900’s. The Impressionist composers were mostly French and included Francis Poulenc, Claude Debussy and Erik Satie – part of “Les Six”. In the mid to late 1800’s German music ruled. The orchestrations and sheer numbers of performers had gotten so large it was hard to imagine anything larger. The peak of giant productions culminated with Wagner’s “Ring” opera cycle with runs nearly 12 hours and employees hundreds of performers. Impressionist music reacted to this by scaling down, being light and often times it’s purpose was simply as background music. This was a revolutionary idea at the time.

Three famous piano pieces from the original Impressionist “New Age” composers are Trois Gymnopedies by Erik Satie, Perpetual Movements by Francis Poulenc and Claire De Lune by Claude Debussy. The current music movement started by these composers was picked up in the 1970’s by pianist George Winston and later expanded by artists like Kitaro, Yanni and Vangelis; incorporating electronic sound sources.

I use elements of the impressionist styles when I play background music for meditation. If you listen closely you’ll hear slowly evolving tonal centers, triplets in the right hand vs. duplets in the left (Debussy “Arabesque” style), motor rhythms of constant steady movement and simple high melodies (a device from Minimalism). The composer I keep close to heart while playing for meditations is Francis Poulenc.