Brian Auger - Get Auger-Nized. The Anthology (2xCD) (2004)

For over forty years, Brian Auger has been a musician’s musician. Jazz pianist, bandleader, session man, Hammond B3 innovator, and key player in the rise of jazz/rock fusion, Brian has done it all and then some. An incredible gentleman with one of the most varied careers in music, he has incorporated jazz, early British pop, R&B, soul and rock into an incredible catalog that has won him legions of fans all over the world.
Auger’s unique musical career started at a very early age. Growing up in London during World War II, his family’s house had a player piano, and, at the age of three, ‘this thing fascinated me, with a pair of pedals. You put a piano roll in it, you pedaled, and, as you pedaled, paper was drawn across this grill, with corresponding holes it in for the 88 notes," Brian remembers. "After a while I noticed that I was able to recognize the patterns in all the notes… I began to copy the notes [and] I was actually able to copy these melodies."
The Auger family’s home was bombed in 1944. "We were actually very fortunate, because the house was absolutely ruined, plastered, but none of us were hurt," he recalls. Evacuated to the Leeds/Valley area for nearly two years, he lived with another family, and, as fate would have it, "they had a piano, and I would play it a little bit on there. When I got back home the thing that really grounded me was when I walked in the room, there was my piano." Once home with his family, Auger became the entertainment for the neighborhood. "I used to have little concerts. We had a bay window, and my friends would all sit on the window sill, so I would play with all these little piano rolls, you know, and, and have these little concerts." Aside from entertaining the neighborhood kids, Brian remembers "I began to see the movement from one key to another. I could hear a tune on the radio and immediately sit down and play it. I knew all the pop tunes.
As a child of eight or nine, "I was invited to all sorts of parties, and, since we were broke, people would pass a hat around and give me the money." But aside from playing the British and American pop tunes of the day, Brian’s ears lit up when he started listening to his older brother’s record collection with names like Count Basie and Duke Ellington. Auger’s brother also gave him and old radio, and he was able to hear American jazz played over Armed Forces radio.
Brian could see patterns in jazz compositions, which helped him later as a composer. Auger became fascinated with the various jazz piano men that were making an impact on jazz . "Bill Evans was much more about texture and feel and harmony—harmony was really the thing that attracted me… I found that I loved to listen to his playing but it made me so sad". He also admired Oscar Petersen, Hampton Hawes, Victor Feldman, Red Garland, as well as McCoy Tyner and Herbie Hancock. These two elements—the technique of jazz and the heart of R&B—were what moved Brian. "I knew if I could grab you rhythmically and attract your attention I could get you to listen to something you wouldn’t listen to otherwise, and you’re only going to get a couple of listens before you’re hooked."
(Full version: brianauger.com/full-bio-2)