The great Luke-ski

The second most wonderful thing that I ever discovered in piano bars (TLW being the first, natch) was a community of music/musical theater fans that I never knew existed. I don't think I'll ever forget the first time I walked into Eighty-Eights and heard Karen Miller play "Love is in the Air/ Comedy Tonight." Ten minutes later, I was swigging a Sam Adams, hollering along to "Corner of the Sky," and blissfully aware that I had found a home.

While Karen and Eighty-Eights have been immortalized elsewhere, there's a small handful of other performers on the piano bar circuit whose good humor, showtune knowledge, and personality make for a fun song-filled evening. Rarely acknowledged, these people gamely put up with off-key singers, the thousandth request for "New York, New York," and the general wackiness of late night New York City people, in exchange for a few bucks thrown into a bowl on the piano. Some are aspiring songwriters, others try to make their living accompanying cabaret performers or teaching, but many rely heavily on the cash in the bowl. Which brings me to Luke Sandford.

Luke's been playing at Rose's Turn and other piano bars around the city for the past half-dozen years at least, and has worked his way up from barely being able to sight-read a melody line to playing some of the most absurdly difficult arrangements out there beautifully. Always one with a quirky sense of humor, Luke was the first piano bar person who I knew who knew anything by Tom Lehrer, and a fellow Sondheim nut (actually, make that just plain "nut"... anyone who keeps a [empty] bottle of Viagra and a bunch of packaged moist towelettes on the piano is a few notes short of a symphony, IMHO). Playing double shifts between Rose's Turn and Marie's Crisis meant 11 hours' worth of piano playing in smokey dives, and I was known to spend quite a few of those hours there.

Why am I going on like this? Well, Luke's heading back to his native Canada to take a "real" job (to paraphrase Miss Gulch: To be left is one thing, but to be left for Montreal...), and I thought it appropriate to pay a small tribute to one of the finer examples of the working class schmos of show biz. Even though his CD doesn't include our favorite Sandford arrangement (a medley of "Anything Goes" and "Rubber Ducky"), it's still got some lovely stuff on it.

Have fun up north, Luke. We're gonna miss ya