Henry Butler (September 21, 1948 – July 2, 2018) was an American jazz and blues pianist. He learned piano, drums, and saxophone in school. He received a college degree and graduate degree and taught at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. He worked as a soloist and in groups in Los Angeles and New York City. Despite his blindness, he spent time as a photographer and had his work exhibited in galleries.
Butler was born in New Orleans, and was blinded by glaucoma in infancy. His musical training began at the Louisiana State School for the Blind, where he studied piano along with drums, trombone and baritone horn. He also learned to read classical music in Braille notation while picking up popular songs by ear. He was 14 when he began playing professionally at dances and clubs. He performed at the first New Orleans Jazz and Heritage festival in 1970 with fellow Southern University students, and appeared at nearly every JazzFest afterward.
He went on to Southern University in Baton Rouge, where he majored in voice and minored in piano, mentored by the clarinetist and educator Alvin Batiste. He also studied with the jazz pianists George Duke and Roland Hanna, and earned a master’s degree in music at Michigan State University in 1974 and received the MSU Distinguished Alumni Award in 2009. After receiving his master’s degree, Mr. Butler returned to New Orleans and taught in the vocal program at the Performing Arts High School of the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts.
In 1980, he moved to Los Angeles, where he began his recording career as a mainstream jazz musician. He had distinguished sidemen on his debut album, “Fivin’ Around,” in 1986 (including the trumpeter Freddie Hubbard) and his 1987 album, “The Village” (including Mr. Batiste, the bassist Ron Carter and the drummer Jack DeJohnette).
Here’s “Basin Street Blues” from above CD
Butler was known for his technique and his ability to play in many styles of music. In 1987, music critic Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote that Butler "revels in fluency and facility, splashing chords all over the keyboard and streaking through solos with machine-gun articulation".
But beginning with his album “Orleans Inspiration” in 1990, Mr. Butler broadened his jazz to embrace New Orleans funk, R&B and blues, stretching the familiar material to incorporate everything from Schubertian harmonies to free jazz. His recognition spread; he toured nationally and internationally.
He taught at Eastern Illinois University from 1990 to 1996, after which he returned to New Orleans. In 1993, he founded a series of jazz camps for blind and visually impaired young musicians, which were featured in a 2010 documentary titled The Music's Gonna Get You Through. He performed steadily around the city, as well as on the road and as a guest studio musician for James Taylor, Cyndi Lauper, Irma Thomas, Odetta, Afghan Whigs and others. He released an album as a band leader every two years until Katrina struck.
In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated Butler's home in the Gentilly section of New Orleans. Flooding destroyed his home, including not only his 1925 vintage Mason & Hamlin piano but also his recording equipment, some album master tapes and his extensive archive of live recordings and Braille music manuscripts. Copies of live recordings survived in the collection of the musician George Winston, who helped Mr. Butler select a compilation of them for Mr. Butler’s 2008 album, “PiaNOLA Live.”
After Katrina, Mr. Butler moved to Boulder, Colorado then Denver before settling in Brooklyn in 2009. In New York he assembled a New Orleans-flavored band, Jambalaya. He also collaborated with the trumpeter Steve Bernstein and his group the Hot 9, reviving traditional jazz tunes and New Orleans R&B with postmodern glee. Mr. Butler’s final album, “Viper’s Drag,” was made with Mr. Bernstein and the Hot 9.
Beginning in 1984, Butler pursued photography as a hobby after attending art exhibits in Los Angeles and asking friends to describe what they saw. His methods and photos were featured in the HBO2 documentary Dark Light: The Art of Blind Photographers that aired in 2010. Butler's photographs were shown in galleries in New Orleans.
Butler learned he had colon cancer in 2015 and underwent surgery. The disease returned in 2017, and he used the crowdfunding site GoFundMe.com to finance alternative therapy. But between medical treatments, he continued to perform worldwide. After appearing at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in April, he performed in Beijing and in Melbourne, Australia, and he was planning European dates in July. His final concert was on June 18 at a Jazz for Justice benefit in New York City. Butler died of metastic colon cancer in a hospice facility in the Bronx on July 2, 2018, at the age of 69.
(Edited from The New York Times & Wikipedia)