Hourly Update

Longtime Tucson jazz-pianist Mickey Greco dead at 77

Mickey Greco would sit at his piano and off the top of his head jot down the score of a Cole Porter or Gershwin piece. "He would write out a composition just like you were writing long-hand. All the notes, right in front of you," recalled his student, Norma Carlson. "And I tell you there weren't any mistakes. He had it all in his head." "He was such a gifted musician. He could play any jazz standard in any key, and he didn't need the score," Tucson vocalist Armen Dirtadian said of his longtime music partner, who died Monday from complications of lung cancer. Greco had been diagnosed with cancer two years ago this month, said Carole Greco, his wife of 46 years. On Saturday, the Pittsburgh native and graduate of the Pittsburgh Music Institute complained of breathing problems. On Sunday, he was taken to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he died shortly before 8 a.m. Monday, said his daughter, Karen Metzinger. "We joked in the ER. He was watching football and baseball with his sons, laughing and joking," Carole Greco recalled. "We had a real nice time. Maybe it was meant to be." Greco spent more than 40 years playing jazz piano in Tucson clubs and hotels, starting with the Saddle and Sirloin on Miracle Mile in 1963. He hopped along the stretch of night clubs on Miracle Mile and Speedway and spent 11 years at the old Highway House, which later became the Hilton Hotel. "He always played great, no matter what the circumstances," said drummer Ray Vidal, who played with Greco on and off for the past 40 years. "I don't know what to say about him. Musically, he was unbelievable." "He's a part of Tucson's musical history. He dates back to the days when we had live entertainment in a couple dozen night clubs in the 1960s and '70s," said Steve Emerine, president of the Tucson Jazz Society. "He played good music and people loved to go hear him play." In the 1980s, Greco had his own supper club in which he and his ensemble would play. That's where he hooked up with Dirtadian, who was then in his early 20s. "He asked me if I wanted to sing and he asked me how many songs I knew. Of course I didn't know very many back then, so he taught me," Dirtadian recalled on Tuesday. "I sang in his club from 1982 to 1986, '87. He sold his club and we've been with each other ever since." Greco made a name for himself accompanying vocalists. Dirtadian said the classically trained pianist had an ear for a singer's voice. Sometimes he would boldly suggest that a singer shift to a different key, and most of the times they agreed. "I sat in with him a couple of times and he was amazing," blues/jazz signer Lisa Otey said. "One time Armen took me to a bar Mickey was playing and he let me sit in. Musically, he took me to places I'd never been." "He had a wonderful sense of harmony and he had an actual right hand," jazz pianist and University of Arizona music professor Jeffrey Haskell said. "He had a lot of right-hand facility. That's what jazzers actually really need to make it work." At the time of his death, Greco had 40 piano students, Carole Greco said. At the end of every lesson, Greco gave his students a new piece of music to learn. If he had handwritten the notes, he would go over it so that they could decipher his writing, said Carlson, who took lessons from Greco every Thursday for the past year. "I just love that man," Carlson said Tuesday. "He was just a fabulous pianist and he loved teaching. His students felt very strongly about him. I know I sure do." In addition to his wife and daughter, Greco is survived by two sons, Mike and Jamey, both of Tucson; and two grandchildren. A memorial Mass will be celebrated at 1 p.m. Nov. 2 at Our Mother of Sorrows Catholic Church, 1800 S. Kolb Road. A reception will follow.