Cy Walter (September 16, 1915 – August 18, 1968) was an American café society pianist based in New York City for four decades.
Through the course of a musical career spanning some four decades (from 1929 through 1968), many sobriquets have been applied to describe Cy Walter’s talent, among them the “Art Tatum of Park Avenue”; the “darling of New York supper clubs”; the “champion of the genre”; the “poet of the piano”; the “Michelangelo of music”; the “grand master of harmony”; and the “Dean of Cocktail Pianists”. One WNEW radio announcer, struggling for an apt yet new accolade, even likened Cy Walter to Diogenes.
Although sometimes categorized as a “jazz improvisationalist”, Cy preferred to characterize himself as a “stylist of show tunes”. The reality of Cy’s piano playing, however, was that his creative style was unique, largely defied stereotyped definition, and set its own standard. He was praised for his extensive repertoire (with an emphasis on show tunes) and improvisatory skill. His long radio and recording career included both solo and duo performances, and stints as accompanist for such elegant vocal stylists as Greta Keller, Mabel Mercer, and Lee Wiley.
Born Cyril Frank Walter in Minneapolis, Minnesota, he grew up in a musical family and received early classical training from his mother, a professional piano teacher. In 1934, after a summer job playing piano on the overnight New York to Boston night cruise, he enrolled briefly at New York University but soon accepted an offer to join the Eddie Lane Orchestra on a full-time basis. Four years later, he formed a two-piano team with Gil Bowers and played at Le Ruban Bleu when it opened. Solo engagements followed at upscale bars and supper clubs like the Algonquin, the Blue Angel, and Tony's on West 52nd Street. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Walter explored other musical surroundings: as pit pianist with the Jerome Kern musical "Very Warm for May," as accompanist for Mabel Mercer and Greta Keller, and as leader of his own orchestra at the night club La Martinique.
In 1942, Cy opened his own nightclub, Cy Walter’s Night Cap, whose days were numbered as Cy was called into the Maritime Service for, as he described it, “1 year, 2 months, 5 days, 22 hours, and 10 minutes”. From 1944 to 1952, Walter appeared regularly (as part of a duo piano team with Stan Freeman, and later with Walter Gross) on ABC's popular weekly radio series Piano Playhouse. Reaching an international audience over Armed Forces Radio, and with commentary by Milton Cross, Playhouse featured (in addition to the anchor duo) notable guest pianists from the jazz and classical worlds, teamed up "in all sorts of unusual combinations as duos, trios and quartets." Richard Rodgers, Cy Walter, and Stan Freeman on the Piano Playhouse Show, performed before a live audience, circa late 1940s.
Walter found an ideal showcase for his talents when he opened the elegant Drake Room of New York's Drake Hotel on December 21, 1945. The following year, a Metronome profile noted that "The Cy Walter appeal can be summed up with two t's: taste and the tune. ...
By then a fixture on the New York music scene, Walter spent the rest of the 1950s performing at various Manhattan venues and recording both as a solo pianist and accompanist—-for example, on Ahmet Ertegun's fledgling Atlantic label. While not a prolific songwriter, he also crafted a number of songs in an advanced harmonic style. For example, he composed both words and music for "Some Fine Day" (1953), and collaborated with Alec Wilder on "Time and Tide" (1961) and Chilton Ryan on "You Are There" (1960) and "See a Ring Around the Moon" (1961).
In 1959, Walter was invited to resume playing solo piano at the Drake Room. "I guess by now I know how to work the Drake Room," he quipped with typical understatement to an interviewer in 1966. This six-nights-a-week engagement would continue until a week before the pianist's death from lung cancer in 1968.
From his earliest (and coveted) Liberty Music Shop 78 rpm records, through his last 33 1/3 rpm Cy Walter At The Drake LP release in 1966, Cy’s solo piano performances revealed an highly original musician whose compositions, and variations on well-known standards, had no parallel.
(Edited from Wikipedia & cywalter.com)