Piano bar

A piano bar (also known as a piano lounge) consists of a piano or electronic keyboard played by a professional musician, located in a cocktail lounge, bar, hotel lobby, office building lobby, restaurant, or on a cruise ship. Usually the pianist receives a small salary plus tips in a jar or basket on or near the piano, especially from patrons requesting a song traditionally written on a beverage napkin. Some piano bars feature a baby grand or grand piano surrounded by stools for patrons (or, somewhat humorously, an upright piano covered by a counter that makes it appear to be a grand piano). Others have a bar surrounding the piano or keyboard.

Jimmy Durante started as a piano bar player, as did Billy Joel. Joel's classic hit "Piano Man" is based on his experiences as a piano bar player. Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli also played in piano bars to pay for singing lessons.

Theatre historian John Kenrick describes the piano bar as follows:

The Manhattan Association of Cabarets & Clubs presents annually several awards, MAC Awards, for piano bar performers: Piano Bar Instrumentalist, Restaurant/Hotel Lounge Instrumentalist, Piano Bar/Restaurant Singing Entertainer – male and female.

Piano Bar (album)

Piano Bar is the name of the sixth studio album recorded by the French artist Patricia Kaas. It was released in 2002. Although it was less successful in France, a country in which Kaas' albums are generally well-received, it had higher sales and chartings in other countries such as Germany, Russia, USA, UK and Finland.

Background

In 2002, Sony BMG decided to publish the singer's first best of, Rien ne s'arrête, which achieved a good success. At the same time, Kaas started her acting career in Claude Lelouch's film And now... Ladies and Gentlemen, with Jeremy Irons. To accompany the film, the concept album Piano Bar By Patricia Kaas was released in 2002, which was explicitly not a soundtrack to the film (the real soundtrack has never been released). Piano Bar was the sixth album of the singer, but the first one published that was sung mainly in English, and is a tribute to the great French chanson artists of history.

The album contains cover versions of "Where Do I Begin", which was originally on the soundtrack to Love Story, and an English version of Jacques Brel's "Ne me quitte pas" (Eng: "Don't leave me"), re-entitled "If You Go Away". There are also a cover version of Yves Montand's song "Les Feuilles mortes", and another of Gilbert Bécaud, "Et Maintenant", under the title "What Now My Love".