SOUNDZ LIVE
Duo delights bistro patrons with energetic, bluesy music
By Gerald M. Gay
ggay@azstarnet.com
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 12.14.2006
If you wanted some boogie-woogie with your Burgundy Friday night, pianist Arthur Migliazza, drummer George Howard and the Bluefin Seafood Bistro had you covered.
While bartenders at the swanky Northwest Side eatery served up wines, imported beers and fine liqueurs to seemingly well-to-do patrons, Howard kept the beat and Migliazza tickled eardrums with his high-energy piano play on the restaurant's rustic, rented wooden upright.
The duo worked its way through three hours of rollicking Professor Longhair tunes and roadhouse blues melodies, throwing in soulful instrumentals of popular covers like the classic R&B song, "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy."
The repertoire seemed almost out of place for such an upscale establishment, less Burt Bacharach and more Pinetop Perkins.
"If we are there for three hours, I want to play what I want to play," Migliazza, 26, said, explaining his musical choices. "It all depends on the audience. The owners like whatever makes their customers happy."
Management must have been thrilled with the reactions Migliazza and Howard received Friday night.
Of the 30-or-so customers in the first-floor bar area of the two-level restaurant — some sitting at tables along the walls, eating full meals; others against the fully stocked bar in the middle of the room — most couldn't help but shimmy and shake in their seats to the music.
More eyes were planted on the duo than on the ESPN2 football game on the flat-screen on the wall, three feet above Migliazza's head as his fingers moved like spiders up and down the piano keys, the exposed hammers striking the piano's strings in force.
Both musicians played with eyes closed during extended improvised covers and original material, a product of years of performing together. Howard and Migliazza have known each other since Migliazza moved to Tucson in the early '90s, and they've been playing together in different capacities since 2000.
"He knows a lot of the cues, and I know how he will react to different things," Migliazza said of Howard. "I kind of use those cues to guide him where I want the song to go."
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