Setting a Tone: Chapter Three–The Hunt for a Sophisticated Saloon Pianist

Lessons with Sammy Price, the King of Boogie-Woogie

If not for the construction failures of the John Hancock Tower, Sammy Price would never have come to Boston. He would never have been given a day in his name by the mayor of that city. I would never have come to know him.

Imagine an estuary that developed following the last ice age 10,000 years ago, where 5,000 years ago Native Americans placed fish traps during the seasonal spawning migrations. Imagine an estuary and bay that separated a burgeoning metropolis from a nearby town housing the country's oldest university. Imagine a reclamation project, with mines dug, and a railroad line, running from the mines to the estuary, filling it and creating a neighborhood called Back Bay. And central to that neighborhood, a plaza on which was constructed a magnificent church with Romanesque architecture intended to express the eloquence of its pastor. Imagine that church resting on a foundation of 4,000 wooden pilings driven through the marsh muds that accumulated over the centuries.

Imagine a world famous library erected by that plaza, that would come to be known as Copley Square, named after the heralded portraitist. Imagine a grand hotel, a place where “presidents would stay,” as the slogan went, opening in 1912, along that same Square. Boston’s mayor, grandfather to a future president, would lead the hotel’s opening ceremonies.

Imagine, in 1968, the construction of a skyscraper 790 feet tall, also sitting atop those ancient marsh muds. Designed to have a disembodied presence, though it was anything but.

Imagine an excavation site braced with thick steel panels, there to hold back the pressure of mud building against it. Imagine the panels moving inward thirty-one inches, not enough to halt construction but an alarming amount nevertheless, conveying the force of nature and time.

Imagine the historic church, some fifty feet away, moving the very same thirty-one inches on its pilings. Imagine a lawsuit against the insurance company building the skyscraper. John Hancock Insurance would pay millions to put Trinity Church back together. Imagine Boston’s most prestigious hotel, thirty-five feet away from the Hancock Tower, the street between them sunken 13 inches. Imagine John Hancock deciding to go into the hotel business, and purchasing the Copley Plaza.

With all the bad luck, and there was much more (a skyscraper sheathed with 500-pound mirrored panels that cracked under pressure and fell like kites; a skyscraper twisting in the wind and threatening to fall like a book on its spine, until gyroscopic shifting lead weights were placed on the top floor, counteracting the movements), despite all that, John Hancock fared well with its purchase of the hotel. The Copley was owned by the Sheraton Corporation, whose primary focus was on the Sheraton hotel located next to another tall building, the Prudential Tower. The majority of the rooms at the Copley were renting for $9.50 per night, to traveling airline workers. The John Hancock company would pay a bargain price of $6.5 million for the grand hotel.

Hancock hired two hoteliers to run the Copley, William Heck and Alan Tremaine. They came up with a two-part plan to restore the hotel to its former status. First they would renovate the rooms and get rid of the airline trade. Next they would bring in customers, and people from the local neighborhoods, through entertainment. For Heck and Tremaine, entertainment served the function that decor might at another hotel.

The primary vehicle of entertainment was the piano. Heck and Tremaine would have as many as four pianos in play at a given time, at two bars, the dining room, the ballroom, and a lounge. They would pay as much as $20,000 a month to put people in front of pianos.

There was a well-known bar at the Copley called the Merry-Go-Round, with an actual carousel. Instead of ponies there were tables and banquettes, with a bar and bartender at the center. The carousel rotated at one revolution per hour. The Merry-Go-Round reached its peak of popularity during the World War II years, when naval officers lived on the upper floors of the hotel. Those officers must have presented quite a sight in the evening, wearing white, riding the carousel.

Heck and Tremaine “tented” the room for a more festive look. They removed the bar from its center and placed a piano there. They changed the name of the room to the Plaza Bar.

Alan Tremaine made scouting trips to New York to find talent. They brought in Frank Sinatra, Jr., with a small combo. Dizzy Gillespie came with a small combo. Teddy Wilson, a Cafe Society veteran and leader of a house band there, became a resident pianist, living at the hotel. Bobby Short came for two-week stays, in the spring and fall, on leave from the Carlyle Hotel in New York. Dorothy Donegan, a gifted pianist and exceptional entertainer, often came to perform. After Teddy Wilson left the Copley, Dave McKenna took his place as resident pianist.

McKenna was the last pianist to play on the Merry-Go-Round, before its gearing gave way and repairs proved too costly. McKenna continued to play in the Plaza Bar. Parts of the underlying frame of the carousel remained imprinted on the floor, like trolley tracks on pavement, like a vestige of the heyday of the piano bars.

Bill Heck opened a second bar, named Copley’s, at another corner of the hotel. He sought an identity for that bar over the next several years. Heck created a small sandwich bar in the room, on a small brick platform cut through the wall, exposing it to the hallway running to the reception desk. After the sandwich bar closed, the platform was used as a stage. Heck brought in small combos, with electric piano, sometimes a bass player, maybe a singer. But that seemed just a lighter version of what they offered at the Plaza Bar.

That all changed when Heck went on a ski vacation in the Spanish Sierras. After a day on the slopes he stopped into a bar, and heard music that acutely caught his attention. A rock and roll pianist from London, by the name of Norman Hale, also “Stormin’ Norman Hale,” was performing. Hale was a self-taught pianist known, among other things, for jamming with Led Zeppelin during an impromptu performance on Jersey Island one summer.

Bill Heck watched as Hale played rock and roll and pop tunes, and then, when the time was right, turned up the heat with a rocking style of boogie-woogie piano. Heck saw how the audience responded, how people were moving. Everyone seemed to be tapping their feet. That was key, Heck thought. Everyone wanted to tap their toes, in a place like that, a night like that. Heck also noted that people were spending money, and enjoying it. He returned the following night, introduced himself, and invited Hale to come to Boston.

Heck refashioned Copley’s on the concept of an old-style saloon. He installed an upright piano on the brick stage. He hired an artist to paint portraits on the line of mirrors running around the room at chest height. He told the artist he wanted a touch of the bawdy. The artist depicted Heck, and Tremaine, some of the staff and cocktail waitresses, a couple of Hancock employees, and a minister at Trinity Church (who also had a drink, The Preacher, named in his honor). The mood was giddy, sweaty, and mildly intoxicated. Above the shoulders of the subjects were small nudes, anima figures, brushed in gold and reaching for the light switches, bringing on the bawdy.

Norman Hale came to Boston and played at Copley’s, to the same effect Heck had seen in the Spanish Sierras. But the musician’s union insisted Hale become a member. Hale wanted no part of a union. The union leader told Heck there were many fine pianists in Boston. Heck said he knew that. "Find me someone like this," he said.

He placed an ad, held interviews, and auditions that never seemed to end. It was true, there were many fine pianists in Boston. Most that Heck auditioned were generalists who could play anything. All said they could play rhythm and blues and some boogie-woogie. But Heck wasn’t getting the feeling he wanted. He was seeing great technique, up and down the keyboard, a rush of dextrous notes at speed. But the soul feeling wasn’t present. The feeling that made people tap their feet.

Heck was also looking for a pianist who could be an entertainer. Norman Hale had that ability. He had the component that made a saloon pianist a saloon pianist. That component came from experience, Heck believed. You could play all the scales you wanted, but that would never bring the experiential component that led to playing blues or boogie-woogie with soul, to a room full of people tapping to the beat.

Heck had lunch with Dorothy Donegan during one of her stays at the Plaza Bar. He loved what Donegan could do at the piano. Donegan was a prodigy who at eighteen played a mixed concert of classical and jazz piano at Chicago's Orchestra Hall. Art Tatum had visited her at home and taken her under his wing. Donegan could play a mean boogie-woogie, uptempo and dazzling. She made a kind of comedy routine out of it, dancing and modulating to other themes. Her boogie-woogie was an important moment in her show, but also a lesser part of what she offered.

During lunch, Heck talked about his auditions and explained what he was looking for. Donegan said those people were hard to find. You could run into problems. Someone might get drunk, or have other issues. She asked if he had ever heard of Sammy Price.

Heck said he hadn't. That's the guy you want, Donegan said. She told him she would get in touch with Sammy Price, and a few days later gave Heck his number.

When they talked, Heck told Sammy he was looking for a saloon-type pianist who could deliver the music with sophistication and style. Sammy told Heck he considered himself to be a polished professional playing a saloon kind of music. He had been playing that kind of music for sixty years. Sammy offered to come to Boston so they could meet. Heck said if he was going to do that, he should stay a couple weeks and play at Copley's. He could see if it was a place he could call home.

Sammy came and played full sets, nine to one, for two weeks. Word spread, and people returned with their friends. The room was packed by the second Saturday. They signed a contract, $1,700 a week to start, later to increase to $2,000 if things worked out. ($2,000 in 1982 would be equivalent to $6,600 in 2025.) Bill Heck encouraged the media to think of Sammy Price at Copley’s Bar as a brand, in the way they thought of Dave McKenna at the Plaza Bar.

Sammy would play for a month at a time, followed by a month off, for the next several years.

There was a puzzling moment, not long into Sammy Price’s tenure at the Copley Plaza. The hotel was hosting a convention for bankers, and Sammy was playing in Copley’s before the dinner in the ballroom. The bar was full and noisy.

Heck was making his usual rounds of the hotel. When he entered Copley’s he noticed something interesting. The bankers weren’t paying any attention to Sammy. Usually people were chatting with him, or applauding at the end of a tune. But they weren’t applauding. Heck watched until he realized what was going on. The bankers were all focused on themselves; they were all cutting deals.

Heck stepped up to the piano, talked into Sammy’s ear.

“Sammy,” he said, “none of these guys are talking to you.”

“Yeah,” Sammy answered, “but they’re all tapping their feet.” For Heck that was a moment that would remain in his mind.

Later, Heck would reflect and say, “Think of a hotel you check into, and at seven o'clock people are coming for dinner, and at nine they're coming in for a show, and at ten-thirty people are coming in for a nightcap, and there are always people moving around, there's always a crowd. That draws people in. You're checking into something that's alive, and that's the key. And I'll tell you, if you were from anywhere, staying at the hotel, and you walked down the corridor and heard Sammy Price tickling those ivories, you’d stop and look. Once you did that, he had you.”

Below is a recording of "Eiffel Tower," a boogie-woogie tune Sammy Price recorded in Paris in February, 1948, with Georges Hadjo playing bass and Kenny Clarke on drums. “Eiffel Tower” is a relatively brief composition, only twelve choruses. For those interested in some analysis, “Eiffel Tower” has a lovely symmetry, dividing into two sections. The sixth and the twelfth choruses introduce a signature driving bass figure, for their first four bars. The sixth chorus functions as a powerful transition to the second section, while the twelfth chorus serves as the completion of the three-chorus climax played in the upper registers. Each chorus brings a new theme in the right hand, while in the left hand the tune varies between a traditional chordal bass figure (a flatted third, a fifth and sixth interval) and a striding walking bass that, during the sixth bar, flips back up to the dominant note, a G, descending down to resume the chordal bass on the first beat of the next bar. Not to make it too complicated–”Eiffel Tower” is a short, beautiful, perfect rendition of the boogie-woogie form, with genius rhythm, and full of meaning.

Sammy Price was touring with Mezz Mezzrow when he recorded “Eiffel Tower”. On his return to New York, the Amsterdam News, a Harlem newspaper, printed this piece.