Michel Petrucciani (French pronunciation: [miʃɛl petʁutʃani]; Italian: [petrutˈtʃaːni]; 28 December 1962 – 6 January 1999) was a French jazz pianist. From birth he had osteogenesis imperfecta, a genetic disease that causes brittle bones and, in his case, short stature. Despite his health condition and relatively short life, he became one of the most accomplished jazz pianists of his generation.
Michel Petrucciani's family had Neapolitan heritage and lived in Montélimar, France, in the south of France. They were a musical family; his father, Tony, and his brother Philippe both played guitar, while his brother Louis played bass. Petrucciani was born in nearby Orange, Vaucluse having osteogenesis imperfecta, a genetic disease that causes brittle bones and, in his case, short stature. It is also often linked to pulmonary ailments. The disease caused his bones to fracture over 100 times before he reached adolescence and gave him pain throughout his entire life. In Michel's early career, his father and brother occasionally carried him because he could not walk far on his own unaided. In certain respects he considered his disability an advantage, as it got rid of distractions like sports that other boys tended to become involved in.I have pain all the time. I'm used to having hurt arms... Sometimes I think someone upstairs saved me from being ordinary.
At an early age, Michel saw Duke Ellington on television and wished to become a pianist like him. When Michel was four, his father bought him a toy piano of his own, but Michel smashed the piano with a toy hammer. Soon after this, Michel's father bought him a real piano.When I was young, I thought the keyboard looked like teeth. It was as though it was laughing at me. You had to be strong enough to make the piano feel little. That took a lot of work.
From the beginning, Petrucciani had always been musical, reportedly humming Wes Montgomery solos by the time he learned to speak. He began learning classical piano at the age of four, and was making music with his family by the age of nine. The musician who would prove most influential to Petrucciani was Bill Evans, who he started listening to at around age ten. Petrucciani's layered harmonies, lyrical style, and articulation of melody would always be linked most strongly to his early exposure to Evans.
Petrucciani gave his first professional concert at the age of 13. At this age he was quite fragile and had to be carried to and from the piano. His hands were average in length, but his size meant that he required aids to reach the piano's pedals.
Petrucciani felt he needed to move to Paris to begin his musical career, but found it difficult to leave home. His father was protective and constantly concerned for his son's well-being, hoping to protect him from danger. Petrucciani's drummer Aldo Romano took a less charitable view, thinking that Michel's father was jealous and just wanted to keep Petrucciani at home to serve as his own musical partner. After some difficulty, Romano prevailed and took Petrucciani—at age fifteen—to Paris for the first time.
In Paris, Petrucciani started playing with Kenny Clarke in 1977 and Clark Terry in 1978. His breakthrough performance occurred at the Cliousclat jazz festival. Terry needed a pianist, and when Petrucciani was carried onto the stage and the trumpeter saw Petrucciani's stature, at first he thought it was a prank, only later revising the remark. Indeed Petrucciani astounded the festival with his prodigious talent and virtuosity.He was a dwarf, but he played like a giant.
Drugs and encounters with unsavory women made Petrucciani's time in Paris a mixed experience, but musically and personally it was unequivocally transforming. Despite his considerable talent, his clownish attitude and odd behaviors were seen as immature and insecure. He was foul-mouthed, wore a yachtsman's cap and frequently acted pushy and tough, referring to people as "baby". Nevertheless, his work in Kenny Clarke's trio during his time in Paris set him on a clear path to stardom.
After his stint in Paris, Petrucciani briefly returned home before beginning his professional life. Living with Romano, he was free of the protective presence of his father and began enjoying an independent lifestyle. He began recording for Owl Records and struck up a friendship with the company's owner, Jean-Jacques Pussiau. Pussiau felt that Petrucciani always seemed to be in a hurry to record, which he attributed to Petrucciani's own awareness that his life would be short. Before long, Petrucciani desired independence from Romano, too.He didn't feel free with me. So he had to kill his "second father" somehow to move on. He needed to escape. He needed to go very far, as far as he could go, and that was California.
Petrucciani travelled to the U.S., possibly stopping in New York on the way. As was the case throughout his life, exact details were hard to pin down when it came to Petrucciani:He would lie to your face... In one [story], he scammed his way to New York on bad checks, then had to hide out in Brooklyn with the help of Sicilian family connections. In another, he played piano for trade in a midtown brothel, where he learned the secrets of love.
With Charles Lloyd in New York
In 1982, Petrucciani visited saxophonist Charles Lloyd in California. Lloyd had stopped playing when people began to view his sidemen as more fashionable than himself. After hearing Petrucciani play, Lloyd was so inspired that he agreed to come out of retirement and tour with him. Petrucciani and Lloyd's tour of the West Coast of the United States was a huge success and they continued internationally. On 22 February 1985, with Petrucciani cradled in his arms, Lloyd walked onto the stage at Town Hall in New York City and sat him on his piano stool for what would be an historic evening in jazz history: the filming of One Night with Blue Note. The film's director John Charles Jopson would later recall in the reissued liner notes that the moment moved him to tears.
Petrucciani and Lloyd's performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival was made into an album, and in 1982, they won the 1982 Prix d'Excellence. But Petrucciani expressed mostly disdain and frustration at the awards he felt were being heaped upon him, believing that he was receiving so many at least in part because people believed he was going to die young.
Petrucciani moved to New York City in 1984 and spent the rest of his life there. This was the most productive period of his career. In 1986 he was recorded at the Montreux Jazz Festival with Wayne Shorter and Jim Hall, producing the trio album Power of Three. He also played with diverse figures in the U.S. jazz scene including Dizzy Gillespie.
Throughout his career, Petrucciani also made a priority of recording solo piano:I really believe a pianist is not complete until he's capable of playing by himself. I started doing solo concerts in February 1993, when I asked my agent to cancel my trio dates for a year in order to play nothing but solo recitals... I had a wonderful time playing alone, and discovering the piano and really studying every night. I felt like I was learning so much about the instrument and about communicating directly with an audience... I really loved doing that, and afterwards getting on stage with a group again and playing with other people was a piece of cake!
Petrucciani had five significant personal relationships: Erlinda Montano (marriage), Eugenia Morrison, Marie-Laure Roperch, the Italian pianist Gilda Buttà (the marriage lasted three months and ended in divorce) and Isabelle Mailé (with whom he shares his grave). With Marie-Laure he fathered a son, Alexandre, who inherited his genetic disorder. He also had a stepson named Rachid Roperch.
In 1994, he was granted the Order of the Légion d'honneur in Paris.
In the late 1990s, Petrucciani's lifestyle became increasingly taxing. He was overworked, performing over 100 times per year, and in 1998, the year before he died, he performed 140 times. He became too weak to use crutches and had to resort to a wheelchair. He was also recording, doing television appearances, and constantly doing interviews. In his later years Petrucciani was known to drink heavily.