Bernard Peiffer

Bernard Peiffer (October 23, 1922-September 7, 1976), born to Marcel and Angele Peiffer, in Epinal, Alsace-Lorraine, was a jazz pianist. He died at 53 years of age. His achievements, which astounded the great artists of Jazz, never reached the kind of popular acclaim of his artistic peers.

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EARLY YEARS

Peiffer was the middle son of three children. His father, Marcel, was a career military man, violinist, and a strict disciplinarian. A chamber music devotee, he had hoped that Bernard would become a classical concert pianist.

His uncle, Georges Peiffer, was a church organist, as well as a composer.

Peiffer’s formal study of music began when he was nine years old. He studied with Pierre Maire, a noted pedagogue and a student of Nadia Boulanger, learning piano, and harmony. He reputedly dazzled Maire’s older students, with an exceptional tonal memory, playing, by ear, long sections of classical pieces.

His mother tragically passed when he was a teenager. Peiffer pressed on, continuing his studies at Ecole Normale de Paris, the Marseille Conservatory, and the Conservatory. He won the Premier Prix d'Excellence, at nineteen.

JAZZ DESTINY SURVIVES WWII

As WWII consumed Europe, in his latter teen years, listening to Fats Waller, on the radio, his destiny changed. Peiffer discovered Jazz. He taught himself stride piano playing, mastering Waller’s two-handed style within a few months. Discovering Art Tatum drew him to jazz’ creative freedom, and its improvisational core.

Peiffer was twenty years old, when he both joined the French Resistance, after watching his best friend executed by the Gestapo, and debuted professionally, in Jazz. He played a gig with alto saxophonist Andre Ekyan, in 1943.

Within weeks, guitarist, and leader Django Reinhardt hired him to play at Boeuf Sur Le Toit in Paris, in a ten piece band. Reinhardt became a friend, and mentor, often sitting in Peiffer’s gigs.

HERO OF THE RESISTANCE

One biographer recounts tales of his time in the Resistance: A stolen motorcycle that he drove daringly through the French countryside. Capture by the Nazis. Bernard's sister Francoise recalls him being sent to Germany for "forced labor." He spent a year in a Nazi labor camp.

Paris was liberated, in August 1944. A gig with the Eddie Barclay Orchestra never happened. Peiffer joined the French Army. He served, until 1946.

POST WAR YEARS IN EUROPE

Discharged, Peiffer went back to performing at the French Hot Club, at the Salle Pleyel. He picked up gigs with Django Reinhardt, and top artists in French Jazz, across Europe.

In February, 1948, Peiffer performed at the first Nice Jazz Festival. Band leader Rex Stewart, formerly of the Duke Ellington Band, hired him to tour with his group. He later recorded with them.

By 1949, Peiffer was well known to top artists of the international Jazz scene. He performed with: Sidney Bechet; James Moody; Kenny Clarke; Charlie Parker,; Don Byas; Kenny Dorham; Miles Davis; Max Roach; Tommy Potter, and other visiting American musicians.

Peiffer formed, and led, his own band at the Club Saint-Germain-des-Pres.

He also became involved in performing music in films, including scoring the French film “Quand tu liras cette lettre” (1953), about a nun who leaves her calling to help her sister, and an impressive stride piano performance in Jacques Becker's “Rendez-vous de Juillet.”

In the early 1950s, his career flourished. He:

• won a Jazz Hot Magazine award;
• composed the film soundtrack for “Quand tu liras cette lettre” (When You Read This Letter) (1953) ;
• experimented with musique concrete;
• recorded, for the Blue Star label as a leader
• was honored with a Grand Prix du Disque award, in 1953.

A top bill in Paris, Monte Carlo and Nice, Peiffer continued to attract visiting American musicians, including Hazel Scott, Lionel Hampton, and Oscar Peterson. After a "Jazz at the Philharmonic" concert, Peterson sat, in awe, watching Peiffer's hands flying over the keys.

"His intuition, dazzling speed and strokes of genius served by a faultless piano technique ... had no equivalent on the Paris jazz scene," Alain Tercinet observed.

"Nobody I've heard matches his skills as an improviser and his thorough knowledge of his instrument,” wrote Barry Ulanov.

THE AMERICAN YEARS

Bernard Peiffer left France and immigrated to Philadelphia, in the United States, to immerse himself in the high-flying American Jazz scene, in December 1954.

"My work has certainly changed since I've been here. I get a jazz feeling I never could get in France, because I've been able to live with some of the folklore and customs of America,” Peiffer said. “It would work the other way around. If anybody wanted to get really inside the music of Debussy or Ravel, he would have to live close to the French people. Jazz, like pure French wine, is from the ground where it has gathered the essence of its surroundings for years and years."

Peiffer’s wife, Corine, and baby daughter Rebecca, joined him, shortly after his arrival. His daughter, from his marriage to singer Monique Dozo, Frédérique, remained in Paris. His first American-born child, Pascale, arrived in 1956. The child suffered a tragic illness. She died, in 1958, at the age of two. His loss affected him deeply. It is reflected in his moving ballad, Poem for a Lonely Child.

His son, Stephan, was born in 1962.

During his first decade in the United States, Bernard's career included:

• A concert at Philadelphia's Academy of Music in 1956. Peiffer performed in a two-part program. First, a solo classical repertoire. Next by his jazz group.
• The recording of “Black Moon” on the album Bernie’s Tunes, in 1956, was the first recording of an atonal jazz piano song that blended elements of classical and jazz theory.
• The 1957 Newport Festival performance prompted a New York Times reviewer to note, "Although George Shearing and Erroll Garner were the pianists featured on the evening program, a French pianist, Bernard Peiffer, who appeared during the afternoon session, elicited the greatest interest."17
• A nationwide tour of the United States
• Successful performances at some of New York’s legendary venues: Carnegie Hall, Birdland, and the Composer Room.
• Television and radio appearances
• The release of seven albums

As Rock became ascendent, Jazz begin its slow fade from the popular music scene. Like many musicians of this period, in America’s slowly dying jazz scene, he suffered from inept management, poor promotion, and the indifference of record labels seeking a “modern” sound to sell. It led to months of intermittent activity. He also had myriad issues with record labels. His arrival from France, to America, in 1954, generated notariety.

He released his final commercially produced album, in 1965. In a crowded field of acts squeezing into fewer and fewer gigs, his career slid slowly into oblivion.

Peiffer’s health became a handicap for his career, as well. Kidney surgery, at the end of the decade, slowed down his touring. He spent more of his latter years, performing, and teaching, in the Philadelphia area. There was some time touring with a trio, that he led. They played on college campuses, for the most part. They also made a trip to Los Angeles, in September, 1970, appearing at Donte's.

"Bernard Peiffer doesn't just play the piano,” the Los Angeles Times music critic Leonard Feather wrote. “He conducts hit-and-run commando raids on it ... fellow pianists from Roger Kellaway to Hampton Hawes sat open-mouthed."

His performance at the Newport-New York Festival’s solo piano night, in Carnegie Hall, in 1974, brought the house down.

"I thought Carnegie was going to explode," Peiffer said.

"Peiffer is amazing,” Leonard Feather wrote. “I can't recall any jazz pianist except Art Tatum blessed with such mastery."

"Undoubtedly Peiffer will make a reputation in this country, a large and important one,” said Jazz scholar Barry Ulanov. “In time, the sensitive listener to jazz will not be able to escape the impact of his playing. It is too good in too many ways to elude those who listen hard."

Artists like Michael Brecker lauded Peiffer's work. His former students, including Uri Caine, Sumi Tonooka, Tom Lawton, and others, have honored his influence on their music.

DEATH

Peiffer died on September 7, 1976. He was 53 years old.

His career, which started with awe-inspiring success in France, never reached that level of critical, or peer acclaim, in the United States. Moreover, his music sadly fell into obscurity. Much of his most creative, visionary play, for record labels that were lost to poor management, and time, have never been available. Many jazz historians, though, consider Peiffer to be one of the twentieth century's virtuosos of jazz piano.

POSTHUMOUS COMEBACK

Friends and associates recorded his gigs around Philadelphia. The album “Formidable” was released in early 2006, featuring his work recorded between 1970, and 1975.

Awards

Jazz Hot Magazine (circa 1950s)

Groups

Peiffer played with many touring French, and American jazz artists, working in Europe, including Django Reinhardt and Charlie Parker. (See Biography, above)

• Bernard Peiffer And His Saint-Germain-des-Prés Orchestra
• Chico Cristobal And His Boogie-Woogie Boys
• Dany Kane Quartet
• Bill Coleman/Don Byas Quintet
• Don Byas Big Four
• Geo Daly Et Son Quartet
• Hubert Fol & His Be-Bop Minstrels
• James Moody - Don Byas Quartet
• James Moody Quintet
• The Be-Bop Minstrels
• The Bernard Peiffer Trio

Discography

• Bernie’s Tunes (1956)
• Formidable (2006)

Songs Recorded

(Standards and Original Compositions)

Decca	102858	7/9/1957	Soon	Bernard Peiffer Trio	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	102859	7/9/1957	Laura	Bernard Peiffer Trio	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	102860	7/9/1957	Pied Peiffer	Bernard Peiffer Trio	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	102861	7/10/1957	My melancholy baby	Bernard Peiffer Trio	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	102862	7/10/1957	Autumn leaves	Bernard Peiffer Trio	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	102863	7/10/1957	Love is here to stay	Bernard Peiffer Trio	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	102864	7/10/1957	I could write a book	Bernard Peiffer Trio	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	102865	7/10/1957	Prelude, fugue and trio	Bernard Peiffer Trio	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	102866	7/10/1957	Requiem (for Art Tatum)	Bernard Peiffer Trio	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	102867	7/10/1957	Yesterdays	Bernard Peiffer Trio	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	104220	1/31/1958	Our waltz	Bernard Peiffer	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	104221	1/31/1958	Easy living	Bernard Peiffer	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	104222	1/31/1958	Invitation	Bernard Peiffer	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	104223	1/31/1958	You make me feel so young	Bernard Peiffer	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	104224	1/31/1958	Who can I turn to	Bernard Peiffer	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	104225	1/31/1958	Easy to love	Bernard Peiffer	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	104226	1/31/1958	Goodbye	Bernard Peiffer	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	104227	1/31/1958	They say it's wonderful-1	Bernard Peiffer	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	104228	2/5/1958	Blues for Django	Bernard Peiffer	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	104229	2/5/1958	Let's get away from it all	Bernard Peiffer	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	104230	2/5/1958	Last night when we were young	Bernard Peiffer	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	104231	2/5/1958	The song is you	Bernard Peiffer	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	107486	6/3/1959	You and the night and the music	Bernard Peiffer	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	107487	6/3/1959	Willow weep for me - variations	Bernard Peiffer	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	107488	6/3/1959	Night and day	Bernard Peiffer	instrumentalist, piano

Decca	107489	6/3/1959	Don't blame me	Bernard Peiffer	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	107490	6/3/1959	While we're young	Bernard Peiffer	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	107491	6/3/1959	I can't get started	Bernard Peiffer	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	107492	6/3/1959	Here I'll stay	Bernard Peiffer	instrumentalist, piano
Decca	107493	6/3/1959	Stardust	Bernard Peiffer	instrumentalist, piano

References

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