Happy Birthday to Erroll Garner

Erroll Garner developed a style full of lush and delicate chords that cemented his place in the pantheon of great jazz pianists of the 20th century. His complex harmonic vocabulary is made all the more impressive by the fact that at no point did Garner learn how to read music. From swing, to bop, to slow ballads, Garner was a capable player in any vein. This clip of his playing comes from the 1945 film called “State Fair”.