HENRY BUTLER
Denver, Colorado
New Orleans Piano Professor
Henry Butler is the Crescent City's reigning keyboard king. In a city with legions of legendary pianists, that's no small feat. Versatile and gifted, this brilliant pianist's mastery of jazz, funk, R&B, blues and stride piano styles is unrivalled. His vocals are impressive, too - soulful, expressive and musically unerring. Here's a virtuoso pianist who mixes soul with brains.
Henry Butler was born in New Orleans and has been blind since infancy. At age seven he joined the glee club at the Louisiana School for the Blind, where he was already studying piano. He was performing professionally by the time he was 14, and studied voice in high school. At Southern University in Baton Rogue he enjoyed the tutelage of New Orleans jazz giant Alvin Batiste, and went on to earn a master's degree from Michigan State University. Returning to New Orleans, he spent some intense afternoons with the legendary Professor Longhair, learning "Fess's" shuffle patterns, trills and parallel thirds and sixths. In 1980, Butler moved to California to pursue a career in jazz and quickly earned a national reputation as one of the genre's most gifted and versatile soloists.
In 1996 he shifted gears, heading back to New Orleans and traditional New Orleans music. He continues to impress critics, fans and fellow musicians with his prodigious talents. Dr. John salutes him as, "the pride of New Orleans and visionistical down-home cat and hellified piano plunker to boot." Butler's house and everything in it was destroyed in Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He originally relocated to Boulder, Colorado, and has just bought a house in Denver.
Links
http://henrybutler.com/hbreflections.html
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