Peter Mintun (born 1950), is an American pianist and historian of American music of the 1920s.

Biography

He was born into a musical family in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...

. He grew up playing at parties and local events, and was drawn to American music of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s at an early age.Michael Feinstein's American Songbook. . Page accessed March 14, 2015 From 1973 to 1989, he played regularly at the San Francisco restaurant ''L’Etoile'', then at the

Fairmont San Francisco The Fairmont San Francisco is a luxury hotel at 950 Mason Street, atop Nob Hill in San Francisco, California. The hotel was named after mining magnate and U.S. Senator James Graham Fair (1831–94), by his daughters, Theresa Fair Oelrichs and ...

. He began playing in New York City, first at the New York Palace, and then spent seven years at Bemelmans Bar at the

Carlyle Hotel The Carlyle Hotel is a luxury apartment hotel on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1930, the Art Deco hotel was designed by Sylvan Bien and Harry M. Prince, with interiors by Dorothy Draper. It was named after the S ...

. He moved to New York City in 2001. Mintun has released three of his own recordings of songs of the 1920s and 1930s: “Deep Purple,” “Grand Piano,” and “Piano at the Paramount,” which were called "exemplars of re-creations of music of that era." He has also produced

piano rolls A piano roll is a music storage medium used to operate a player piano, piano player or reproducing piano. Piano rolls, like other music rolls, are continuous rolls of paper with holes punched into them. These perforations represent note control d ...

, and has appeared in movies, on television, and in concert halls. Early in his career, he accompanied disco icon

Sylvester Sylvester or Silvester is a name derived from the Latin adjective ''silvestris'' meaning "wooded" or "wild", which derives from the noun ''silva'' meaning "woodland". Classical Latin spells this with ''i''. In Classical Latin, ''y'' represented a ...

on a series of recordings of vintage jazz tunes. He is an authority on composer

Dana Suesse Nadine Dana Suesse (; December 3, 1909 – October 16, 1987) was an American musician, composer and lyricist. Biography Dana Suesse was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1909. When she grew too tall for ballet, she began piano lessons with Gertru ...

, and has championed her music. He has been a consultant for numerous books on Jazz Age music. On buying an 1897

townhouse A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home, is a type of Terraced house, terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with a small footprint on multiple floors. In a different British usage, the term originally referred to any type o ...

Washington Heights, Manhattan Washington Heights is a neighborhood in the northern part of the Borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is named for Fort Washington (Manhattan), Fort Washington, a fortification constructed at the Bennett Park (Ne ...

, he became an informal neighborhood historian as well.

References

External links

Official websitePeter Mintun YouTube Channel: "Min-Tube"
* Living people 1950 births Musicians from Berkeley, California 20th-century American pianists American male jazz pianists 21st-century American pianists 20th-century American male musicians 21st-century American male musicians American jazz pianists Jazz musicians from California {{US-pianist-stub