Pianist remembers a beloved aunt
Pianist/composer Ben Bierman is set to release a new recording, “Songs for Aunt Mary,” on Oct. 21.
Bierman is a Brooklyn-based trumpet player, composer and multi-instrumentalist. In his compositions, he incorporates elements of jazz, blues, Latin music and the Western art music tradition.
“While my last record, ‘Some Takes On the Blues,’ focused on the blues, for “Songs for Aunt Mary’ I have composed in the types of song forms that make up a large part of the Great American Songbook,” Bierman said. “This designation refers to compositions written largely in the first half of the 20th-century by composers such as George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Rogers, Eubie Blake, Jerome Kern and Frank Loesser.
“These types of standard song forms are as natural for me as the blues — they are what I hear first,” he said. “This record of nine recent original solo piano compositions is in honor of the influence of my late Aunt Mary and uses these traditional forms in my own way. This music also owes a debt to the spirit of Thelonious Monk, as his solo piano playing of standards is music that has inhabited me deeply for over 50 years.”
Bierman said his Aunt Mary had a vibrant piano playing style.
“It always felt like a party when she played, and the arrangements she created — she mostly played by ear — sounded like the standard sheet music, but better,” he said. “We shared a great deal musically over the years and always had a fun time playing and singing. She was a minstrel in her small town of Fremont, Nebraska, playing in church, at the ‘rest homes,’ and for town functions, including Fremont Days, a yearly outdoor summer festival. She was also the unofficial town photographer and a beloved figure around town, and had a smile and a compliment for everyone.”
He says he grew up a “little old school musically.”
“Any get-together at our home always wound up around my grandmother’s Steinway upright that I now have in my apartment,” Bierman said. “My mother, Susie, or my Aunt Mary would play and we’d all sing the old songs — they are a huge part of me. Without it being said, I was expected to slide onto the piano bench. This was the beginning of a long life of performing for just about every type of entertainment there is, though professionally I have done so as a trumpet player.”
Bierman said he had had a wonderful time composing and performing these songs for this recording while he thought of his Aunt Mary and the maternal side of his family heritage.
“The songs stand alone, but they also wound up feeling like a suite to me,” he said. “My hope for it is to be the kind of record you put on when friends come over to socialize, like when we sang at family gatherings. I also hope others will want to play some of these songs, and the accompanying song book is available with both the fully composed music and fake sheets.
Along with “Some Takes On the Blues,” his music can be heard on “Beyond Romance: Songs” by Ben Bierman. As a trumpet player, he has performed with a wide array of artists, including Johnny Copeland, B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Johnny Pacheco, Machito, Johnny Colon, Archie Shepp and Arthur Blythe.
He is also the author of “Listening to Jazz” (Oxford University Press), has essays in numerous books and journals and is an associate professor at John Jay College, City University of New York. Visit for more information.