Commodore Music Shop
He began studying piano at the age of ten. During his teenage years he was introduced to jazz by way of the Commodore Music Shop in New York City. There he met the manager Jack Crystal (father of Billy Crystal), who was running jam sessions on the Lower East Side. At these sessions Johnny met some of the greatest players of the era, such as Willie "The Lion" Smith, Big Sid Catlett, Joe Thomas, Hot Lips Page, Joe Sullivan, Pete Brown and others. The experience of sitting in for Joe Sullivan and Willie "The Lion" Smith was invaluable and soon allowed Johnny to become a hired player.
Read more about this topic: Johnny Varro
Famous quotes containing the words music and/or shop:
“Since a man must bring
To music what his mother spanked him for
When he was two ...”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street,
Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can,
Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut
Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder’s gone,
I must lie down where all the ladders start,
In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)