Arizona Jazz Duets at Steinway Center

‘Duets: Danny Long and Judy Roberts’ on April 5 at Steinway Center features jazz on 2 grand pianos

Scottsdale, AZ – “Duets: Danny Long and Judy Roberts” will feature the jazz musicians playing two 7-foot Steinway grand pianos at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, April 5, in the intimate and acoustically superior Recital Room of Steinway of Phoenix.

Admission at the door is $20 for Inner Circle first row seating, $15 for general seating at 14418 N. Scottsdale Road (southwest corner of Acoma, north of Thunderbird), Scottsdale. Space is limited to 100 and reservations are advised, called to the piano center, 480-951-3337. Doors open at 2 p.m.

The concert, fourth in their popular “Duets” series presented by Patricia Myers of Myers Productions, will feature favorite American swing music and ballads. The pair began performing professionally as teenagers in Chicago.

Each has a singular vocal style and individual approach to playing piano, and the combination creates musical magic. Long is known for his satiny vocal style and always-swinging piano work; Roberts for her sensual vocals, high-energy keyboarding and Uzi-speed scat singing. The pair’s incomparable “Duets” CD includes fan favorites such as “Summertime,” “Jeannine,” “Autumn Leaves,” “Teach Me Tonight” and “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most.”

Danny is self-taught and began working the club scene at 19, and within a few years had an album produced by Bobby Darin. Also self-taught, Judy began performing at age 14, playing songs by ear that she learned from her father, guitarist-vocalist Bob Loewy, an arranger for big-band leader Fletcher Henderson.

Long started playing professionally in 1959 and, three years later his star was on the rise via a debut album produced by Bobby Darin for Capitol Records. But two weeks after the recording session, he opened his mail to find “Greetings” from the Army. So instead of embarking on a promotional campaign with Capitol, he was drum major with a marching band at Ft. Riley, Kan., and also led an Army big band, as well as singing and writing jazz arrangements. Despite his absence from the club scene, the album was released June 1963. 

Long performed in the service, winning gilded “Army Oscars” in two categories of the Fifth Army Talent Show at Ft. Carson, Colo. After his discharge he returned to Chicago to play lounges, but also wrote and sang commercial jingles, including one for United Airlines (“$4,000 for 20 minutes’ work”) and products such as 7-Up and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

He has released 18 CDs and four vinyl albums. He currently performs Tuesdays Fridays and Saturdays at Remington’s Lounge at the Scottsdale Plaza Resort where he plays fan favorites written by composers such as Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Hoagy Carmichael, Duke Ellington and the Gershwins. He moved to the Valley in 1979. Long and his wife Danielle live in Gilbert, the parents of five children and grandparents of 10.

Roberts, a popular Valley winter-season entertainer since the 1980s, moved to Phoenix last year. She is known for her sensual vocals, hard-swinging piano style and rapid-fire scat singing with a repertoire that ranges from the hits of Ellington, Porter and the Gershwins to bebop, ballads and contemporary Latin sounds.

She currently performs Thursdays through Mondays at The Phoenician Resort, and at Remington’s on Tuesdays (with Long) and Wednesdays (with saxophonist husband Greg Fishman). She has appeared in concerts, festivals and clubs in every major U.S. city, as well as Europe and Japan, including three consecutive years of four-month engagements in Singapore. Her most unusual performances include playing with a trio as part of “Concerts in the Sky” aboard a KLM jumbo jet en route to Holland’s North Sea Jazz Festival, a legendary three-piano/six-hands concert with Marian McPartland and Nadine Jansen at Phoenix Symphony Hall, and her recording of the theme-song for TV’s “Wheel of Fortune.” Her discography of 15 albums includes “In the Moment,” which was nominated for a 2003 Grammy award. Her most recent issues are with Fishman, including “Two for the Road.”

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