Beegie Adair
Beegie Adair was a prolific, award-winning jazz pianist and arranger known for her interpretations of jazz and popular standards and show tunes. She sold over two million recordings globally. Her melodic, fleet-fingered style reflected the sounds of her major influences, including George Shearing, Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, and Erroll Garner.
Adair grew up in Cave City, Kentucky, where she began taking piano lessons at age five. She continued to study piano throughout college, earning a B.S. in music education at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green. During and after college, she played in jazz bands, and spent three years teaching music to children before moving to Nashville, where she became a session musician, working at WSM-TV and on The Johnny Cash Show (1969-1971). She and her husband also started a jingle company to write music for commercials.
In 1982, Adair and saxophonist Denis Solee formed the Adair-Solee Quartet, which evolved into the Be-Bop Co-Op, a jazz sextet. In 1998, she released Escape to New York, her first trio-led date with a rhythm section consisting of Bob Cranshaw and Gregory Hutchinson. She signed to the fledgling Hillsboro label for 2001's Dream Dancing: The Songs of Cole Porter; bassist Roger Spencer and drummer Chris Brown joined her. Dream Dancing was the first of dozens of themed albums devoted to songwriters and singers. In 2002, she was named a Steinway Artist.
Most of Adair's recordings have been issued by the independent jazz label Green Hill Productions. They include 2008's Yesterday: A Solo Piano Tribute to the Music of the Beatles, 2010's Swingin' with Sinatra, and 2012's The Real Thing (which spent 20 weeks on the jazz charts and was chosen one of the year's best 100 jazz albums). In 2015, her trio collaborated with saxophonist Don Aliquo on Too Marvelous for Words.
From 2011 onward, Adair and her trio regularly played Birdland in New York. While visiting, they often collaborated with vocalist Monica Ramey. In the spring of 2016, that partnership bore fruit on the album Some Enchanted Evening. The following year saw Adair issue the compilation By Request, which featured her most requested and personal favorites. Beegie Adair died at her home in Franklin, Tennessee, on January 23, 2022; she was 84 years old.
© William Ruhlmann /TiVo
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Discography
87 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller
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Jazz Piano Christmas
Jazz - Released by Green Hill Productions on 1 Oct 1999
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
Love Letters: The Beegie Adair Romance Collection
Jazz - Released by Green Hill Productions on 1 Jan 2011
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
The Great American Songbook Collection
Jazz - Released by Green Hill Productions on 1 Jan 2002
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
The Way You Look Tonight
Gospel - Released by Green Hill Productions on 1 Jan 2004
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
Swingin' With Sinatra
Jazz - Released by Green Hill Productions on 1 Jan 2010
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
Jazz And The Movies
Jazz - Released by Green Hill Productions on 1 Jan 2012
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
By Request
Jazz - Released by Green Hill Productions on 21 Apr 2017
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
Parisian Cafe
Gospel - Released by Green Hill Productions on 30 Jun 2009
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
Cocktail Party Jazz: An Intoxicating Collection Of Instrumental Jazz For Entertaining
Jazz - Released by Green Hill Productions on 1 Jan 2011
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
Best Of Beegie Adair: Solo Piano Performances
Jazz - Released by Green Hill Productions on 10 Jul 2020
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
Jazz On Broadway
Jazz - Released by Green Hill Productions on 1 Jan 2005
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
An Affair To Remember: Romantic Movie Songs Of The 1950's
Beegie Adair, The Jeff Steinberg Jazz Ensemble
Jazz - Released by Green Hill Productions on 23 Jul 2012
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
Save The Last Dance For Me
Jazz - Released by Green Hill Productions on 1 Jan 2012
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
Gershwin on Sax: The Timeless Music Of George Gershwin Featuring Tenor Sax and Orchestra
Denis Solee, Beegie Adair, The Jeff Steinberg Jazz Ensemble
Classical - Released by Primary Wave Music on 15 Jan 2018
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
Deep Cuts
Jazz - Released by Green Hill Productions on 20 May 2022
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
Best Of Beegie Adair: Jazz Piano Christmas Performances
Christmas Music - Released by Green Hill Productions on 16 Oct 2020
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
Winter Romance
Jazz - Released by Green Hill Productions on 1 Jan 2009
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
Escape to New York
Bebop - Released by Adair Music Group, LLC on 16 Jun 1998
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square
Beegie Adair, Star City Symphony
Jazz - Released by Burton Avenue Music on 17 Feb 2023
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
When I Fall In Love
Beegie Adair, Star City Symphony
Lounge - Released by Primary Wave Music on 7 Jan 2022
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo -
The Christmas Song
Beegie Adair, Star City Symphony
Christmas Music - Released by Primary Wave Music on 5 Nov 2021
Available in16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo