Michel Petrucciani - Personality and Musical Style

Personality and Musical Style

Osteogenesis imperfecta seemed to contribute greatly both to Michel Petrucciani’s personality and his playing style. By his own account, Petrucciani was in almost constant physical pain of some kind throughout his short life. Yet, he was known for a cheerful, playful, even cavalier personality. He said, “I love humor, I love to laugh, I love jokes, I love silliness, I love that, I think it’s great, I think laughter is worth a whole lot of medicine.”

Though he often exhibited arrogance, cockiness, and even womanizing tendencies in his adolescent years, the defining characteristic of Petrucciani was ultimately his great and unlikely confidence. Michael Zwerin recalled one example: “We were sitting there wondering what to play. It was kind of hot. And Michel said, ‘anybody know “Giant Steps?” Neither Louis nor I wanted to admit we didn’t really know it. So there was this great silence. And Michel said, “Well, I do!” and he pounded into a solo version of it at a very fast clip, and it was really amazing. That to me is Michel—‘Well, I do!’ Man, a confidence you wouldn’t believe.”

Petrucciani also appeared to have a quirky side. In a Mezzo documentary, he can be heard saying in a humorous voice, “I am very short!” Pussai, the owner of Owl Records, recalled when he used to carry Michel for convenience. “Sometimes, when I used to carry him, he would bite my ear. We’d walk into a restaurant, and he'd chomp.

During his last years in New York, it seemed Michel’s general attitude of carelessness was magnified. He said to his manager, “I want to have at least five women at once, I want to make a million dollars in one night.” A common theory is that Petrucciani’s awareness of his greatly reduced lifespan compelled his perseverance, success, social life, and recklessness all to extremes, but this does not seem to be the case. Michel himself expressed denial of the life-shortening nature of his disease. In an interview, he said: “My handicap is not mortal. I won’t die because of my handicap. It has nothing to do with that.” He also said, “Eventually, when I get to be 75, I’ll write a book on my deathbed.” Yet other reliable sources assert that he was always aware of the potential effects of osteogenesis imperfecta.

What is known for certain is that Michel Petrucciani was fiercely determined to take all the joy and satisfaction from life that he could. “I’m a brat,” he said. “My philosophy is to have a really good time and never let anything stop me from doing what I want to do. It’s like driving a car, waiting for an accident. That’s no way to drive a car. If you have an accident, you have an accident—c’est la vie.” He certainly lived true to his maxim. Just one week before he died of a pulmonary infection, he was up all night celebrating the new year with his friends.

Stylistically, Petrucciani is most frequently compared to Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett for his lyricism and Oscar Peterson for his virtuosity. His playing was often quite dramatic; critics accuse him of over-indulgence and cheap showmanship; sometimes dismiss his music as being too accessible. Petrucciani was loose and playful in a rhythm section, and gave attention to a strong articulation of the melody. He sometimes paused at the peaks of his solo lines before descending again, as if in appreciation of his idea.

Michel distinguished himself most obviously from his primary inspiration in that he lacked Bill Evans’ cerebral approach to the piano. Petrucciani’s interest was primarily in simply playing; he spent little time reharmonizing or arranging. “When I play, I play with my heart and my head and my spirit… I don’t play to people’s heads, but to their hearts.” he says. The moments of musical clarity or bliss he describes come during his performances. “You know sometimes when I play a concert… and I have that right timing… those notes make me feel warm and good… it’s like lovemaking, it’s like having an orgasm." Yet despite his emphasis on performance, he disliked applause, calling it old-fashioned and a distraction.

Michel’s unbridled love of the piano in no way entailed artistic carelessness. Indeed, he described the piano as literally taking him to his grave. “It might lead me to death… meaning that I’d be on my deathbed saying, too bad I can’t live another year, I would have been much better.” He also complains about mistakes, saying, “…the pitfall is that when I make a mistake it sounds absolutely outrageous, really horrible because everything else is so clear!”

Wayne Shorter summed up Michel Petrucciani’s essential character and style in this quote:

“There’s a lot of people walking around, full-grown and so-called normal—they have everything that they were born with at the right leg length, arm length, and stuff like that. They’re symmetrical in every way, but they live their lives like they are armless, legless, brainless, and they live their life with blame. I never heard Michel complain about anything. Michel didn’t look in the mirror and complain about what he saw. Michel was a great musician—a great musician—and great, ultimately, because he was a great human being because he had the ability to feel and give to others of that feeling, and he gave to others through his music.”