Traditional New Orleans Jazz by Thomas W. Jacobsen

Author:Thomas W. Jacobsen
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Louisiana State University Press
Published: 2011-03-28T20:00:00+00:00

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JOHN ROYEN

New Orleans Stridemaster

Stride piano stylist John Royen is probably the best-known solo pianist in New Orleans these days. He has appeared regularly in that capacity at upscale hotel venues such as the Hilton and, more recently, the Intercontinental. But he is also a veteran ensemble player, performing with groups at the Palm Court Jazz Café, Fritzel’s Jazz Pub, and, for many years, Preservation Hall. Royen is well known on the jazz festival circuit as well.

Since Hurricane Katrina, Royen has also been working with Pete Fountain two nights a month at the Hollywood Casino in nearby Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. He and his family live some distance north of New Orleans in Folsom, Louisiana, so they were spared much of the destruction of that hurricane as well as her sibling Rita.

Named one of the city’s Jazz All-Stars by New Orleans Magazine in 2008, Royen says, “I’m just trying to keep the idiom alive.” His latest solo CD (2008) is called In the Beginning. It includes, as he puts it, “a variety of usual trad piano pieces, some rags, Fats [Waller], Jelly Roll, Ellington, James P. Johnson, and so on.”

The following interview was conducted in July 1998 and published in The Mississippi Rag in September 1999.

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