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Jay Angoff
Piano Man

Music@JayAngoff.com

Are you looking for a dueling pianos pianist? A solo piano bar player? A piano accompanist? A keyboard player for a band? If so please contact me.

Since 2014 I’ve been a dueling pianos player at the Georgetown Piano Bar in Washington DC. One of the great things about the Georgetown Piano Bar is that it’s multigenerational. It’s more young than old, but there are also people in their 60’s and 70’s. So we need to play everything from Frank Sinatra and the Beatles and Stones and Motown to Taylor Swift and rap and WAP. Here are two articles from local publications about my playing there. [put links here]

I also played with Chuck Berry in the late 90’s and early 2000’s whenever he came to Columbia, MO, where I lived at the time (Not a profligate spender, Chuck traveled only with a bass player and picked up a piano player and a drummer wherever he played). And I played with the Brooklyn Bridge for a year (they had a big hit with The Worst That Could Happen), and also with Elliott Murphy for a year. (There were once big posters in the New York subway announcing that “Elliott Murphy is going to be a monster.” That didn’t happen, but Elliott has had a good career in Europe).

I’ve also played in soul bands, show bands, country bands, disco groups and light jazz quartets. And the bands I’ve been in have opened for some well-known acts, including Billy Joel, the Kinks, Aerosmith, Jefferson Starship, Harry Chapin, Sammy Kershaw, JoDee Messina, and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Except for two years after college, I have never been a full-time musician—I’ve had regular day jobs as a lawyer and a government official. But no more. So if you’re looking for a piano player, I’d love to hear from you.

Music Library

September
This is a horn song, and thus doen’t obviously lend itself to being played on the piano. But for some reason—the double sing-along choruses?--it is a piano bar favorite.

Country Roads
Just the endings of these two familiar favorites.

YMCA
Still one of the best sing-along/dance-along songs ever, even 45 years later. The original video has that authentic 70’s look, complete with The Ramrod in the background.

Don’t Stop Believin’
Just the endings of these two familiar favorites.

Piano Man
When I was in Elliott Murphy’s band we opened for Billy Joel at the Main Point in Haverford, PA, outside of Philadelphia, in February 1974. He had just come out with the Piano Man album, and he wasn’t very well-known. But he was stunningly good.

Dixieland Delight
Has a great audience-participation chorus, even if you didn’t go to an SEC school.

All Too Well 10 Minute Version
There may be some haters but this is a great song, and a great singalong song. I also do about 30 other Taylor Swift songs. Favorites are always changing, but Death By a Thousand Cuts and Better Than Revenge (the original version, not the one with the dopey line change) have to be near the top.

Ain't Too Proud To Beg
It sounds really simple but it’s not, because the piano pattern is tricky. One of David Ruffin’s best vocals. And great lyrics.

Lean On Me
Another great singalong song, simple and instantly recognizable.

When The Saints Go Marching In
This is the intro and first chorus of Dr. John’s arrangement of When the Saints Go Marching In.

Wagon Wheel at Pianorama
Wagon Wheel as a shuffly on the Delbert McClinton blues cruise. Guy on my left is Dane Farnsworth, Keb Mo’s keyboard player.

Ballad Solo
Wherever I’ve worked, I’ve usually ended up playing the piano in connection with my job in some way. Here I am playing a solo in my living room at a going-away party for my friend Howard Koh, who was the Assistant Secretary for Health, and is also a singer.

Man, I Feel Like A Woman
A great female favorite, but apparently it’s also now a favorite of men who really do feel like women. Regardless, it’s a great song.

Richard Tee
I lived on the upper west side of Manhattan in 1974-75. In 1974 I lived around the corner from a bar called Mikell’s, where Stuff--Steve Gadd on drums, Cornell Dupree on guitar, Gordon Edwards on bass, and Richard Tee on piano--would play almost every night. This is the first 32 bars of Richard Tee’s famous solo in Do You Want Some of This.

Werewolves of London
Warren Zevon was one of David Letterman’s favorites and is also one of mine. He would still be alive today hjad he taken care of his health. The lyrics to Excitable Boy may be unacceptable today—if it ever was acceptable--but Lawyers, Guns and Money are more timely than ever.