“I feel like every breath is a very precious gift, and the sky is never the same two moments in a row. And there’s always something there but it’s something you’ve never seen before that’s brand new and precious about being alive. It’s that simple.”
So said the brilliant pianist Warren Bernhardt in a 2012 interview with Jazz historian Monk Rowe.
Bernhardt passed away at the age of 83 on August 19 of natural causes, according to his beloved wife Jan, leaving behind a treasure of music. He recorded and performed over decades with his close friends Mike Mainieri, Tony Levin, Steve Gadd and David Spinozza in L’Image and Steps Ahead; on the road with Simon & Garfunkel and Steely Dan; toured the world with Paul Winter…
In a beautiful piece on his passing, Lee Mergner of public radio jazz station WBGO in Newark, New Jersey told of how in the 1970s and 80s Warren “became a first-call keyboardist for studio recordings for everything from a Muppets movie to Don McLean’s American Pie to an album with Carly Simon. Bernhardt estimated that he played approximately 1000 studio dates during his long career. Mike Mainieri said that the keyboardist was known as ‘One-take Warren.’ But he also worked as a sideman with various notable jazz players like Gerry Mulligan, George Benson and Clark Terry.”
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He was born in Wausau, Wisconsin, in 1938.
Here’s Warren, from the 2012 Monk Rowe interview:
“I played my first concert when I was six — Mendelssohn and Beethoven and Josquin and Bach…I concertized quite frequently. My father was a pianist and he knew all the great pianists…he knew a lot of the great opera singers and conductors…I don’t really want to go into great detail because it seems like terrible name dropping, but he knew all the greats and I played for them all…
“I was destined to become a pianist, because I tried everything else, I went to school and studied science and everything. I got completely away from music after my father passed away when I was 13. I couldn’t listen to music without getting very torn up inside…but nobody ever had to teach me about pedaling, for instance. I came to this planet knowing how to phrase and how to pedal a piano. I wouldn’t sleep unless they put my cradle underneath the piano…my dad or Josef Lhevinne or one of his friends would play Chopin and then I’d go to sleep…my earliest memories were underneath the Steinway with all the wood going around and that big brass thing…so it was destined.”
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“They are transplanted hippies of Woodstock,” said Nicole Bernhardt, of her parents, Warren and Jan. “I grew up with a lot of spiritual knowledge from my dad. As he got closer to death he lost his spiritual way, and I got to remind him and that was really beautiful. And we had conversations that there’s something greater out there…His music clearly brought a magic to our lives that is rare to be around. As an artist he managed to follow his path and still take care of a family. And that’s really hard to do. “
The family includes Nicole’s twin daughters, Lana and Fern; Warren’s son Tim and wife Suzanne. Jan’s son Dorian Caster, who passed on; his widow Corrie and sons, Kai Caster and Rio Caster.
“It’s a hard thing because someone’s life stops, but life goes on,” said Nicole. “The key is creativity, transforming negative energy into positive. Our family is really big on that.”
Nicole and her daughters had moved in with Warren and Jan.
“He was always on the road as I was growing up, so this was the most time I ever spent with him. We had a beautiful bond and I really appreciated that. There was a dark humor there that we appreciated. I feel really fortunate I was able to be with him this last year.
“Now my goal is to take piano lessons again…I quit in fourth grade but…I want to keep his piano alive. My kids play it too…
“He used to go to Wisconsin, take the whole family every summer, to the lake where he grew up. It was his recharge. Only time he didn’t was the Simon and Garfunkel tour. He couldn’t pass that up.
“The lake was very special to him. A couple of years back he called me, and said he was doing this dreamwork, he was always meditating, and said ‘I saw my next life, I’m a black man playing three pianos…’
“He was born ready to play, and I think he passed away ready to play again.”
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From Paul Winter:
Warren was a giant of a pianist, as well as a larger-than-life mensch. He had the exquisite touch of a great classical pianist (which he had become before he discovered jazz); and he was a natural fountain of improvising, inspired by the two pianists he most revered: Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans.
Warren and I met during college days in Chicago, in 1960, where he was attending the University of Chicago, and I Northwestern. My roommate, trumpeter Dick Whitsell, and I were putting together our “dream sextet,” and one night Dick heard Warren playing at a club on Rush Street, and came home excited and said to me: “I found our pianist!”
By early 1961 the sextet was complete, having found our drummer, bassist, and baritone sax player. And the band clicked. We won the 1961 Intercollegiate Jazz Festival, from which we got a recording contract with Columbia Records; and in 1962 the State Department sent us on a goodwill tour of colleges in Latin America. We had the life-time bonding experience of this six-month odyssey, through 23 countries, during which we played 161 concerts.
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From Sue Pilla:
I have a treasured memory of Warren playing Bach’s complete Goldberg variations for me on his father’s amazing piano, in the Bernhardt family living room. He didn’t think it odd that I chose to lie down under the piano for that performance. His wife, Jan, was gracious and seemed to find it amusing. What precious memories! RIP Warren.
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In 1968 Bernhardt moved to Woodstock.
“Warren was playing with Jeremy Steig and the Satyrs and they were also backing folk singer Tim Hardin,” said Mike Mainieri, according to WBGO’s Mergner. “I joined both touring groups. By 1969 quite a few musicians including Warren and Tim had moved to Woodstock, as did I. Our children went to school together and we performed together our entire lives: studio sessions, tours, and many gigs at the Joyous Lake in Woodstock.”
Jan told Mergner that Warren “considered the Woodstock area his true home and loved playing with local musicians like Mainieri, Levin, Jack DeJohnette and others.” For her part, Jan told Mergner, she felt lucky to witness his creative musicality. “He had such a broad mastery of feeling and painting in his musical expression in so many genres,” she said. “His touch was something extraordinary…That’s what I really fell in love with, the essence of what he was…”
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Marc Black, with whom Warren played countless gigs, writes:
‘Warren the Trickster’
If you’re lucky, there’s someone in your life who challenges you to grow. To be better, to go farther. Warren was that person for me. He helped me believe in what I might do right from the start. Like the time he told the rest of the band to walk off the Joyous Lake stage, one at a time, on his cue…in the middle of a jam. He was the last to hop off and when he walked past me, he whispered in my ear… ‘If you’re not gonna sing from your heart, what’s the point?’ I was shocked but I took up the challenge and sang solo to this packed house, from the deepest place I could locate.
One by one, the band (Betty MacDonald, Michael Esposito and Donald Macdonald) came back, all with mischievous smiles on their faces. And on the count of four, we all hit the groove with a love and giddy joyousness I’ll never forget. I’m sure the audience thought I knew all about this choreography well in advance. But in reality, this was just one more time that Warren brought us into the now. One more way he shared his love of music and creativity with us all. And one more reason he’ll forever be in my heart.
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State Assemblyman Kevin Cahill shared this from his personal journal:
Back in the early ’80s, my commute to Albany started each day at about 7 a.m. That meant that the alarm went off each weekday morning at 6 a.m. That coincided with the opening of the morning show on WDST with host Brian Hollander. My trusty GE radio alarm clock, which was only recently handed down to my daughter, diligently turned on the radio every morning at precisely the same time that Brian opened his show with an instrumental by the great Warren Bernhardt. I didn’t know the name of the tune so it lived inside my head nameless for another decade
At some point I wanted to find that song.
Record stores were still a thing (and are again, thankfully) and that is when I bought my first, second and probably fifth or sixth Warren Bernhardt album. As soon as the cellophane was off the sleeve, the record was plopped on to the turntable and each song was sampled to find those first four notes that started so many of my days in my early career. Some songs were familiar, some were so close that I thought perhaps my memory of the tune was mistaken and that it sounded completely different than I recalled. But then it happened. I found “Praise” by Warren Bernhardt and it was and is magnificent.
Now, once again, using slightly newer technology than a 1970’s GE clock radio, I own both a vinyl and digital version of this masterpiece and “Praise,” from the Manhattan Update album, with Mike Mainieri opening up on the Vibraphone, Warren filling in a perfect piano accompaniment, Tony Levin on bass, Steve Gadd on drums, David Spinozza on guitar, greets me in the morning and reminds me that each day is new and, like the song, filled with promise, beauty and energy.
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Jan says that it was Beethoven that inspired Warren to write “Praise.”
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Happy Traum, for whom Warren recorded Homespun instructional videos, posted on Facebook:
It’s hard to wrap my mind around the fact that Warren Bernhardt is gone. He was a large presence in every way. Physically, a big, warmhearted, friendly guy; musically, a giant. He could play anything, from Rachmaninoff to bebop and everything in between. His musical ability was off the charts (in every way) but he would accompany a simple folksong as willingly and enthusiastically as he would a complex jazz improvisation. And he played with just about everyone — the list is too long to relate here. He gave of his talents freely and generously and made everyone he played with sound better.
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“Warren was one of the few musicians I’ve played with who never played a bad note,” said bassist Tony Levin in an email sent to Mergner at WBGO. “His touch on the keyboard was so distinctive and so musical, that just the sound of his piano was enough to captivate you, but then his choice of what to play was always just what the music called for…”
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The family is planning a Celebration of Warren Bernhardt’s life in May or June.
Join the family! 
