Cover photo © 2025 Marilyn Stringer

Bruce Katz’s life has been a musical travelogue, an odyssey between instruments, bands, and continents. He has played on the biggest and smallest stages. He’s been an academic and a barroom blues banger. He is one of the finest blues piano players and organists of his generation, nominated eight times for the Blues Music Awards “Blues Piano Player of the Year”. He continues to put out excellent records, now on his own label, and tour the world. The Katz has had nine lives.

One: The Formative Years

Katz grew up in the musical melting pot of Brooklyn, playing classical piano since age five. It was a great musical foundation, but he would soon be bitten by the blues.

“I loved Big Maybelle and Dinah Washington, both her jazz and blues stuff,” Katz said. “Bessie Smith got me when I was about ten years old. I was a kid going ‘this is the most magnificent music I’ve ever heard.’ Of course, her band members Louis Armstrong and Fletcher Henderson led me down into the early jazz which was something that I tried to play. I heard be bop one day and ‘I’ve got to figure out what those notes are’ and that’s what led me to go to Berklee. But I figured it out after a while.”

Two: Berklee College of Music

After beginning his professional music career in Baltimore as a pianist and bass player, Katz decided he wanted to concentrate on blues and jazz organ and piano playing at Berklee. It would lead to a long association with the famed institution.

“There’s just so much energy there. When I went there you either studied jazz, got a teaching certificate, or you were a composition major. Now there’s million industry-type degrees and music therapy, production, and engineering. I taught there for 14 years and started the Hammond organ lab there. I started a blues history class there. I had to really convince Berklee. They go ‘How can you have a blues history class to take up a whole semester.’ There’s an attitude, you know. Actually, it was really hard to fit blues history into a 15-week semester. I found myself racing through things and only getting up to 1960 or something. It was very rewarding. I was in the piano department. You really have a broad spectrum of musicians there.”

Some years later Katz would meet up with one of the most noted Americana artists of all-time, who had a Berklee connection, Levon Helm of The Band.

“When I first moved to Woodstock, I got absorbed into the ‘Levon World’ and I was playing a lot of Midnight Rambles. He told me about when he went to Berklee as Mark Helm, his real name. They had no idea who he was. He was in big bands playing drums and he couldn’t read music. He just pretended he was reading it and he listened, and he played it the way it was supposed to be played just listening to it a few times.”

Three: Big Mama Thornton

While in Boston, Katz got the opportunity of a lifetime to play with one of the inventors of rock ‘n roll and modern blues.

“That was pretty fantastic actually. It was a great band out of Boston. She was so soulful and so intensely beautiful. I’m playing ‘Hound Dog’ and ‘Ball and Chain’ with Big Mama Thornton, what can I say? She still had it. She was in a car accident a few years before that, but she sang great. There was one moment, and I think I have a recording of this. We played at Folk City in Greenwich Village and Odetta was in the audience. We were up there with Big Mama and they started singing to each other from the audience to the stage, back and forth, trading verses on something. It was just transfixing. I’m about to see if that recording hasn’t disintegrated, it was 40 years ago.”

Four: Barrence Whitfield and the Savages

After Thornton passed away, Katz joined Barrence Whitfield in 1986 to tour the United States and Europe for about five years. The bluesy garage rock outfit recorded three albums in that time. While it was fun rocking out, Katz was ready for a change.

Five: New England Conservatory

“I ended up 30 years ago getting a Master’s at the New England Conservatory in Jazz Studies. After I had been on the road with Barrence Whitfield and the Savages for a long time and I just wanted to get back to music. It was very striking. Berklee is like 4,000 kids going berserk. The jazz department at the Conservatory was 70 people and you have like George Russell, Cecil McBee, Paul Bley, Geri Allen, it was really cool. I’ve had my academic periods between being out in the world. I was sort of only the one that was out in the real world having toured a lot beforehand. My take on all the information was very different than these people that had gone to undergraduate school and now they’re in graduate school and they’re going to teach jazz. I was there just to gain knowledge to go back on the road. I had been in barrooms for years and these guys had been in classrooms for years. It was just a different perspective.”

Six: Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters

In 1992, he was invited to join blues ace Ronnie Earl’s band. He stayed for six albums and tours. Grateful Heart won Downbeat Magazine “Blues Album of the Year” in 1996. He left in 1997 to concentrate on his own band and was an in-demand session player and tour sideman, but the years with Earl left behind some excellent music and memories.

“Every gig was a highlight. Ronnie and I were very suited to play together in many ways and we played off of each other. I play with a lot of energy and he plays with a lot of energy. We used to just blow the roofs off of venues. We would challenge each other in musical ways. I learned a lot about slow blues and he learned a lot about jazz from me and he was wanting to go in that direction. It was a great partnership and that whole band with Per Hansen and Rod Carey, that was a pretty magical band. We toured the world and it was really fun. There is some video out there of us playing in Germany in ’96 and I look back and watch those and marvel at that music. It was great.”

Seven: The Allmans

Katz would play in several configurations with members of The Allman Brothers Band, including two bands with Butch Trucks and one with Jaimoe. He also had a notable stint in Gregg Allman and Friends for six years.

“I with him (Gregg) from 2007 to 2013. Somewhere in the middle there is where he got ill and needed a liver transplant, so there was one year he was having some problems. But for the most part, he sounded great. His singing was just incredible. He was like a regular guy. We all rode the bus together. We all hung out and played together. He was actually a pretty shy person. But he was a rock ‘n roll star, he had an aura. When he walked into the room, everyone knew that this guy with this aura was there. But man, he could sing. He sang “Many Rivers To Cross” by Jimmy Cliff and it was just unbelievable, but we only did it once. He didn’t want to do it, but boy he was fantastic. It was a real experience getting to play with him. I saw the original band with Duane, I go back that far. The Allman Brothers always had a very special place for me, so getting to play with Gregg was something else. I’ve had some of those moments. I’ve played ‘Johnny B. Goode’ with Chuck Berry and ‘Whipping Post’ with Gregg Allman. I’ve been lucky to be in the right place at the right time sometimes, you know?”

Eight: The Bruce Katz Band

Started in 1992, Katz’s own outfit has recorded 13 albums (including Solo Ride, a duo record, and two live albums). He continues to tour regularly, including a December stint through his home state of New York and then down South in late January. His most recent record, Back in Boston Live, is one of the best of his career.

“It was my usual band, Aaron Lieberman on guitar and singing, Liviu Pop on drums. On the organ tunes, I am playing bass, on the B3 going through a separate bass amplifier. Normally when we play live, even on the piano tunes, I’ll be doing one hand on the organ and one hand on the piano, but for that gig I got my old friend Jesse Williams to play bass. I was in Duke Robillard’s band with Jesse and he has a big career. He was with the North Mississippi All-Stars, he plays with Jimmy Vivino, with tons of people. So, on the piano tunes we had the luxury of a bass player which allowed me to play piano with two hands. That venue (The Fallout Shelter) is this beautiful 110-capacity, comfy, kind-of bohemian venue, but it’s set-up as a TV studio and a recording studio. So, when I heard about this place, I thought this might be a great place for a live album. We did two nights so we could play everything twice. The performances were really great and the sound quality was amazing. It sounds like a studio album and it’s a live album. That’s kind of rare. Sometimes live albums suffer on the audio quality. I’m really, really happy with that album. That’s definitely one of my favorite albums of mine. I got to put it out on Dancing Rooster Records, which is my own label that my manager and I co-own.”

One highlight from Back In Boston Live was a surprise cut honoring one of his heroes called “For Brother Ray”.

“That was 100% spontaneous, unplanned. I never did it before, I’ve never done it since. It was the end of the night, encore time. When I sit around my house, I play Ray Charles, my favorite musician. I just started doing it. Just a weird thing. I never thought I would do it, it just came out. He’s everything man. I met him briefly. I got to play with David “Fathead” Newman a lot. We would talk about Ray some. Everyone would go up to David and say, ‘Tell me about Ray’. I did play with David a lot in an organ (quartet) format. He would hire me to play when he wanted to do organ, guitar, sax, drums. The first time I met him was on the Ronnie Earl record Grateful Heart and he was a guest on that. Then I moved to Woodstock and he lived in Woodstock. So that’s the closest I got to Ray.”

Now in his 70s, Katz has no plans to slow down. He spreads the gospel at home and abroad.

“It’s amazing because I’ve been touring for 40 years, and I still love it. I’m going to go back to Lincoln, Nebraska and Des Moines. I just love the energy and feeling of playing for people and I even like driving around in the van. We tour a fair amount. We’ll do a number of U.S. tours. We’ve been to Europe, actually we just got back from Korea, my first trip to Asia. A jazz festival with 10,000 people there, sitting in the rain on the first night. Thousands of people there with slickers and umbrellas sitting there in the rain listening to the music. It’s fun. We’ve been to Poland a few times in the last few years and there’s also a hunger for jazz and blues. We’ve been to Romania and Latvia and they love that music. They really want to hear it. They don’t take it for granted at all.”

He also played a memorable gig this September in Las Vegas, one that stretched him out musically.

“I played the (Big Blues) Bender as an artist at large. I did four shows with the Jimmy Carpenter Brass Bender Band. Then we did a special piano show that was very cool, it was like their feature show of the week. It was a scripted history of blues piano. Victor (Wainwright) and Jimmy were the people organizing it. I foolishly said ‘Hey man, I’ll play Meade Lux Lewis’ ‘Honky Tonk Train Blues’ from beginning to end. That is a hard piece man! It’s like ten pages of music. I practiced so much for that I hurt my shoulder. But I memorized it, it went great. I also played ‘Cow Cow Blues’ by Cow Cow Davenport and then we had a boogie-woogie jam, but it was really fun. I also did a show with Kirk Fletcher, he and I fronting a back-up band, which was also fun. I love Kirk, he’s really one of the best out there, I think.”

Nine: The Future

Katz’s future musical life doesn’t seem very complicated. He just wants to keep playing the blues.

“It’s more satisfying for me to play, just more communication, more emotion. In my own band, we venture in some directions, but to me the core is always the emotional content of blues and the trappings of what blues is all about. So, even if we go off in a direction, I always feel like we’re still playing blues. Maybe stretching certain concepts, but not getting away from the vibe, the rhythm, and the feeling of it.”

Katz still has big ears and spotlighted a rising blues star for fans to be aware of.

“Yates (McKendree) is like 23 and he’s an amazing piano player, but a more amazing guitar player, which is what he’s doing. I consider him the finest blues guitar player I’ve heard in decades. He reminds me of Ronnie Earl back in the day. Yates McKendree, worth checking out. He’s young and he’s absorbing all the history. He’s virtuosic in the best kind of way, he’s not playing rock at all.”

So, what’s next?

“I have a new drummer named John Medeiros, Jr. and he was with Joe Louis Walker for the last five years, up through Joe’s untimely passing. I made that record with Joe and Giles Robson about five years ago, the acoustic blues record that was beautiful (the Blues Music Award-winning Journeys to the Heart of the Blues). Joe sounded so good on it. John’s a regular member of the band and we’re going to do some sort of recording in 2026, but I’m not sure what. I have more music coming.”

What motivates him to keep going?

“Things are so isolated these days and there’s a lot of strange stuff going on. Just to communicate, play music, and be with people of like-minded thoughts. To get that good feeling of they’re giving me love and I’m giving it back…and it’s the best thing I can think of doing. I’m just never going to ever stop playing. My idol is Pinetop (Perkins), he played until he was like 97. Bobby Rush is up there, his 90s. I don’t see a reason to ever stop. I’m confused when I hear about musicians not playing anymore. It’s not only the playing, but it’s going out and playing for people. I want to go out and feel that feeling. There’s nothing better to me that when they’re getting it and I’m getting them and something happens that never happened before and that’s the magic of the whole thing really.”

Visit Bruce’s website to find a live show near you: https://www.brucekatzband.com/