Released this past week: “The Pianos I Have Known: The Autobiography Of Irving Fields”
Collaboratively written between 94 year old Irving Fields and Huffington Post
music columnist Tony Sachs
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-sachs/) and edited and released by music critic
Aaron Joy through his indie book publishing and music label Roman Midnight Music
(http://www.romanmidnightmusic.org).

The book is currently available only in paperback via Lulu, and on Amazon.

“He’s [Fields] the composer of chart-topping songs performed by the likes of Dean Martin, Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan and Xavier Cugat… one of the original Manhattan “society” cocktail
pianists whose career stretches back to the days of Prohibition… whose sister
Peppy was known as the Sophie Tucker of Miami Beach due to her long running radio
show… the originator of one of the first piano-drum-bass trios, with a later trio
lasting nearly 40 years… the man who first fused Jewish and Latin music with the
classic 1959 album “Bagels & Bongos”… a headliner at Carnegie Hall, top draw on
round-the-world cruises, star of radio and TV, and writer/performer of a hit song on
YouTube… and he’s still playing six nights a week as he approaches his 100th
birthday… This is the life of a Jewish kid from the Lower East Side who hated
practicing piano.” He’s also the inspiration behind the writing of
the book ‘And You Shall Know Us By The Trail Of Our Vinyl’ about Jewish music
history and the first release by the ReBoot Stereophonic jazz reissue label.

The book, at nearly 300 pages, covers his life growing up in the Lower East Side of
Manhattan, performing in local Jewish theaters, through being inspired by a trip to
Cuba and forming his legendary trio, recording his albums and making hit records, a
look behind many of his popular songs, playing with many celebrities including
songwriter Albert Gamse, Jackie Mason, Canadian Jewish fusion artist Josh “SoCalled”
Dolgin, and to finding a second career well past retirement age. Also included are
unseen photos, the first published visual discography of his albums, an appendix on
his sister Peppy Fields “the Sophie Tucker of Miami” who started a career in New
York as a radio host before relocating south. This is the first information about her work in print. Manhattan lounge pianist Albert Aprigliano, whose often worked
with Irving over the decades, contributed a short introduction.

Here’s a few videos of Irving with the Trio and then today at Nino’s
Tuscany (117 W 58th, Manhattan) where he has performed without fail every Tuesday through
Sunday 7-10, for the last 8 years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkDAAi-JTzI (the Trio performing the hit ‘Miami Beach
Rhumba’)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcQGNYI44kg (a clip at Nino’s Tuscany with Josh
‘SoCalled’ Dolgin from ‘The SoCalled Movie’)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ainGwdBlbes (‘Cheesecake’ once again, by the more
reputable Louis Armstrong)