The Official Web Site for Kathleen Landis

"I was on the piano stool, and unwilling to get off it, from the age of three."

She's a Midwest girl, born and raised in the Detroit area. Summers were spent in the lovely Charlevoix area on the shores of Lake Michigan. And from the start, music was the primary focus in Kathleen's life. Her aunt and uncle remember little Kathleen playing the piano when she visited their farm. She was playing pieces before she had any training, which came when she was about eight.

Her neighborhood was working class, with housewives at home and husbands who went off to work. But within that traditional neighborhood lived a maverick music teacher, a dramatic Hungarian lady, who wore French scarves and drove an open convertible. To Kathleen, this was what she wanted to become, a career woman with a strong sense of independence and flair. She convinced her mother that this exotic neighborhood denizen was just the person to give her piano lessons. It was apparently the right choice, because Kathleen was affected by the drama and talent of her teacher, who, in turn, saw the young girl's talent and gave Kathleen ambitious and exciting music to play. By age 14, Kathleen was giving recitals.

"It was all classical music then. I didn't even know what jazz was, but I was always improvising. Finding a different way to play notes."

Her parents were not musically inclined, but they had a piano, and they supported her obvious talent and enthusiasm. There was also the radio, television and records, the big bands, the Lawrence Welk shows. Kathleen remembers years later, hearing the Ray Noble song, "I Hadn't Anyone Till You," and realizing that she knew the words because as a child, she had sung along with the record. All these influences, the drama and excitement of her first piano teacher and the music she learned, the beauty and the serenity of the lake where she spent her summers, the music over the airwaves, all these contributed to what Kathleen performs today, and how she imagines and interprets her music.

After high school, Kathleen studied to be a music and drama teacher, and when she graduated, she taught music and drama in high school for one year. But during her college years, she had discovered jazz, and as it became more and more important in her music, she quit her teaching position and auditioned for a job in a Detroit club, heading a jazz trio.

Career

"Ecstasy is in music. And that's what I want to convey most to people. Not that general meaning of the word, that swooning, but the feeling of, ‘Oh, that brought back that special moment!'"

The musicians in the club encouraged Kathleen's growing interest in jazz. She discovered the creative sounds of Bill Evans, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock. And she also met Howard Lucas, a student of pioneering jazz pianist, Lennie Tristano. They fell in love and have been together since.

Jazz filled hers and Howard's life. She learned to improvise out of classical music, learning the piece, then working to hear it again in a different way, bringing the melodic line down, expanding it out. She realized if she wanted to play in the major jazz and classical arenas, she would have to move to New York. She gave a final concert in Detroit, and her beloved teacher urged her to stay there and continue studying. But Kathleen had made up her mind, and she left Michigan.

In 1982, she arrived in New York City, after a stop in Washington, DC. She spent a year playing piano in the St. Regis Hotel. Then she heard of an audition for the Cafe Pierre, which was reopening after having been closed for renovations. She competed against 17 other musicians, all men. She got the job.

"I love a home base because of the extended family that comes out of it, although it takes a lot of energy to keep playing for the same people and moving forward."

Her job at the Cafe Pierre is unique. Kathleen knows most of the people in her audience at any given time. Some are well-known, like Cy Coleman, Joan Rivers, and Robert Goulet. Most are neighborhood regulars, and she has her international coterie as well. Repeat visitors at the elegant hotel stop by in the evening to hear her set.

One resident of the Pierre, pianist Shura Cherkassky, introduced Kathleen to Arminda Canteros. Canteros, classically trained but also well known as as a tango pianist, proficient in both traditional dance tango and modern tango, or piazzola. Canteros accepted Kathleen as a student of the tango.

In 1995, her tenth anniversary at the Cafe Pierre, Kathleen performed a cabaret show of Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer songs. She had Howard Lucas on piano and Ray Kilday on bass accompanying her, and for one week, Kathleen Landis stood singing in front of the piano, microphone in hand, dressed in a drop-dead vintage black gown, with draping, sequins, and chiffon.

"I loved it!"

The show was so successful that the Pierre let Kathleen head her own trio on the weekends, bringing dancing -- including the tango -- back into the Cafe Pierre. Kathleen performed all kinds of dance tunes, but was especially happy to play the tango music she had perfected under Canteros.

Today Kathleen lives in an East Side apartment, and when she can, she retreats to the mid-19th century church in Staatsburg, New York that she and Howard bought. They recently renovated part of it into a small recording studio and performance center.

Spare time? Not much, but Kathleen occasionally travels to college campuses and to Steinway Hall to lecture on George Gershwin. She also gives piano lessons, one of her students being former New York Governor, Hugh L. Carey, who bought Frank Sinatra's piano not long ago and wanted to learn how to play it. Meanwhile her music is constantly evolving, and today she says--

"I am now able to pull in, not expand, and isolate the best of what I am becoming. This is the most thrilling personal experience of my lifetime. I am not sure exactly where it's leading, but I know I am on my way. I am just beginning to see the next level of my expressive capabilities.”

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