Huntington native to tickle ivories at HMA

Lee Ward, The Daily Independent, Ashland, Ky.
Updated ·3 min read

May 3—HUNTINGTON — Award-winning pianist Ed Bazel didn't come to the keyboard willingly.

"I think it was a cleverly disguised stroke of genius by my mom," the Huntington native said. "My sister Patty was taking piano and we'd drop her off and go someplace for 30 minutes. I think she thought if she'd drop me off at the same time with Patty, that's an hour of freedom with no children."

Humiliation came later.

"The shame for me was, when I was out playing football, my mom would lean out the front door and yell, 'Eddie, time to practice piano.'"

Bazel will return to the streets of those memories for a free concert at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Huntington Museum of Art. He will be joined on stage by Charleston native and violinist Laura Epling, cellist Maggie Chafee and a guest appearance by flutist Karri Sarka Fischer of Huntington.

After graduating from Huntington East High School, Bazel earned a degree in business and computer programming from Marshall University. Already, he'd been bitten by the performing bug.

"We had a band at Beverly Hills Junior High School and we played all the sock hops and I could see how people related to music," he said, noting there was another reason he enjoyed performing. "I didn't have to ask a girl to go to the dance with me."

As a senior, he and buddies formed an impromptu band to perform in a school talent show.

"We were called Johnny Flush and the Commodes," he said. Despite the questionable name, the show brought down the house.

"We got a standing ovation, people were screaming," he said. "I realized music is very powerful and it really hit me, this might be the career I should be going after."

After he finished his degree, he said he told his parents he was going to pursue music.

"I said, 'You forced me to take lessons,'" he said. "But that was the best gift they could have given me."

For five years, he was the pianist at the now-defunct Michael's, a French restaurant in Huntington, where he performed in front of Rod Stewart and Rick Springfield. He performed at the Hyatt in Lexington for five years, too, before going to Los Angeles to study music and perform at businesses downtown (he was eventually named Best Pianist in Downtown Los Angeles by a local newspaper).

After picking up on how the talent agency operated, he said one day when he went in to pick up a check, he offered to make some of their paperwork digital. He worked his way into general manager, where the company managed such performers as Judy Collins, Gordon Lightfoot and Charlie Daniels.

He decided to open his own talent agency based in Nashville; he also operates a small online radio station called The River Of Calm — Music to Soothe Your Soul. He has been the recipient of Miller Piano Specialists Hall of Fame Award in the Instrumentalist category (2017), Entertainer of the Year (2018) and Lifetime Achievement Award (2022).

In his own Nashville community and elsewhere, Bazel has spearheaded a partnership with Alive Inside, an organization providing music headphones to dementia patients and to chemotherapy patients during treatments.

Bazel's latest album, "The London Sessions: Reflections from Studio 2," was recorded at Abbey Road Studios. Making a recording at that legendary site was a goal for Bazel, and he will talk about the experience and others during Saturday's concert.