Pianist Dave McKenna's signature style resonated

While David McKenna may have played to high praise from Los Angeles to New York City, he loved Boston, his musical home.

Dave McKenna liked to call himself a saloon piano player, though the gin joints he graced were as classy as the guy whose hands effortlessly glided over the keys, creating a sound so full that many listeners thought two pianists were in the room.

A decade-long run at the Copley Plaza bar in the 1980s made him an institution in Boston, and critics loved him wherever he went. In 1981, Newsweek called him "the world's best barroom piano player." Critic Whitney Balliett of The New Yorker wrote in 1973 that "a great many jazz musicians of the middle generation consider him the best pianist alive, and it is easy to understand why."

"Yeah, but I'm just a tune player, you know," Mr. McKenna, who never missed a chance to hit a modest note in interviews, told the Globe in 1984.

Diabetes and lung cancer cur tailed his playing in the past several years as he moved from his longtime home in South Dennis to Providence and then to State College, Pa., to live closer to his son. Mr. McKenna died in his State College home Saturday. He was 78.

"Unquestionably, in the annals of pianists, he was right at the top," said WGBH-FM radio personality Ron Della Chiesa. "You could instantly tell Dave's sound because it was unique. Some people say that when they listened to Dave, they thought they were listening to two pianos, but when you watched him, he really had a light touch. It was hardly any effort at all, and yet the sound could fill a room. I guess it's the mark of a genius that he could do that."

Sharing the stage with a who's who of the musically brilliant, Mr. McKenna performed or recorded with such jazz luminaries as saxophonists Stan Getz and Zoot Sims, drummers Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich, and band leaders Woody Herman and Charlie Ventura. Along with his gifts as a solo pianist, Mr. McKenna was a sought-after accompanist.

"Tony Bennett told me that when he sang with Dave, it was like singing with a full orchestra, he had so many embellishments," Della Chiesa said.

While Mr. McKenna may have played to high praise from Los Angeles to New York City, where Balliett hailed his "brilliant six-week solo appearance" at Michael's Pub in 1973, he loved Boston, his musical home for the more than 30 years he lived on Cape Cod.

And his devotion to the Red Sox was such that he often kept a radio, tuned quietly to the game, sitting on his piano at the Copley. He wrote a melody for Ted Williams called "Splendid Splinter," the slugger's nickname. Sunday night during the radio broadcast of the Red Sox game, an announcer mentioned that Mr. McKenna, a legendary fan, had died.

In Woonsocket, R.I., where Mr. McKenna grew up, his father played drums, his mother violin, and his siblings were musical, too. But Mr. McKenna's talent was apparent early on, though not because of formal training.

"All I thought about was music," he told the Globe in 1991. "I'd spend hours playing tunes from the radio, Benny Goodman and Nat Cole. But I wouldn't practice. Never learned the scales properly. I never had the patience, and even now I'm not a good sight reader."

By his late teens he was playing with bands and "when he'd return home, sometimes in the middle of the night after a job, I can remember him playing quietly at the piano when he thought everyone was asleep," said his sister Jean McKenna O'Donnell of Woonsocket. "I would go sit on the stairs and listen, so he didn't know I was there. He'd be playing a piece, maybe by [Claude] Debussy."

Mr. McKenna spent years touring with musicians, and eventually spent time in studios recording. In 1966, he moved to Cape Cod, his home for the rest of his musical career. As he turned principally to solo work, he developed his signature style.

"His left hand is distinctly his own: The moving fingers walked, or strode, or strummed," jazz critic Leonard Feather wrote in 1990 in The Los Angeles Times.

"I think of the melody and bass line - and other things fall into place," Mr. McKenna told Newsweek in 1981. "I do it not so much to sound big, like a big band, as to sound complete. Maybe, too, without knowing it, I've always had a little bit of Bach and Mozart in my playing."

Mr. McKenna's solo performances also exhibited his agile mind as he created medleys by plucking similar words from song titles.

"Take the 'street medley,' which was 26 minutes," Della Chiesa said. "There was "Easy Street," "42nd Street," "Beale Street Blues," "Basin Street Blues," "On the Street Where You Live," "On Green Dolphin Street," and "Don't Forget 127th Street." "

In addition to his sister, Mr. McKenna leaves his wife, Frances of Oak Island, N.C.; two sons, Stephen of State College and Douglas of Dennis; a brother, Donald of Woonsocket; another sister, Patricia Savard of Barrington, R.I.; and one granddaughter.

The family plans to hold a tribute concert, which will be announced at a later date. Della Chiesa said that beginning at 9 p.m. on Sunday, he will devote two hours of his radio show on WPLM, 99.1 FM, to playing Mr. McKenna's recordings and excerpts from interviews.

Mr. McKenna no doubt would have preferred little fuss. The torrent of praise that came his way often made him uneasy.

"I just like to play songs," he told the Globe in 1978 as he shrugged off a compliment, "melodies for dancing."

Correction: Because of a reporting error, an incorrect date was given yesterday for a two-hour radio tribute to pianist Dave McKenna in an obituary on Page B1. Ron Della Chiesa will play Mr. McKenna's recordings and excerpts from interviews beginning at 9 p.m. Sunday on WPLM, 99.1 FM.