Pianist Extraordinaire
Dave Burns
By Ralph De Palma
My good friend and pianist extraordinaire Dave Burns passed away January. I will miss him tremendously. We had some great conversations about Key West music and the many players he worked with. We both lived in Miami during the 60s and 70s and often compared notes. We even conjured up a story of the great Coffee Butler being discovered by a Miami agent and getting a gig in the beautiful Starlight Room on top of the Doral Hotel.
Dave Burns was raised by a single mother in Providence, Rhode Island. She worked almost constantly so his grandmother, Alice McKenna watched over him. 
She also taught piano to a lot of citizens throughout the town so naturally, Dave began piano lessons at three years old. Dave had difficulty learning to read music, mainly due to an undiagnosed form of dyslexia, so he quit piano around age 8.
Around 1957 Dave met Freddy Starks, a black piano teacher and music educator at Boston University. He learned music theory and harmony from Starks who did not require him to read music. They became very good friends. One night a week, Starks would take Dave to the church where he played music and this Irish Catholic white teen tagged alone and learned gospel music.
Dave stayed in Providence until he was seventeen and then he joined the Coast Guard in 1960. In 1964, he returned briefly to Providence but soon moved to Miami Beach. Dave performed at Jazz clubs and hotels, working with a lot of singers. In the 60s, Miami Beach had a number of big shows during the winter season. Tony Bennet, Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra regularly played there along with hundreds of others.
In 1965, Dave played a lot of clubs in the black section of Miami and met another musician, Noel Cruz, who become one of his biggest mentors. Dave learned a good deal about playing piano from Cruz, the best piano player he ever met. Cruz had two brothers that lived and played music in Key West. His brother, Victor was a trombone player in Key West.
While playing three or four nights weekly, he played at a Holiday Inn lounge where on one side of room would be judges, lawyers, and investigators and on the other side would be several of the biggest jewel thieves in Miami, including “Murph the Surf” (Jack Murphy). Dave also supplemented his income by working as a private investigator – there was always plenty of surveillance work in Miami and Miami Beach.
While working clubs in Miami, in the 60s and 70s Dave, had a standing policy before accepting gigs (more like a guideline). He would try to not take a gig unless he was sure he could get home for Johnny Carson’s monologue. There were no VCRs or streaming in 1969.
During the 70s, Danny Knowles, a horn player from Key West, happened into a Miami club and asked to “sit in” at one of Dave’s gigs. Dave and the audience were blown away with Danny’s famous flugelhorn. They became good friends, talking often, and Danny would frequent Dave’s gigs when in Miami.
Danny called one night in January 1978 and said he had just opened a club, Captain Hornblowers, and asked if Dave could come to Key West and play for eight weeks. Dave loved the club and Key West and the eight weeks turned into more than 30 years.
Dave came to work one night in the early 80s at Hornblowers and there was dissention between the drummer and the bass player, resulting in no bass player. As Dave wandered around the balcony of the club, he spotted a fancy Volvo with New York license plates parking below. A man got out with what looked like a bass guitar case. Dave quickly headed downstairs to see where he was going. He said he was going to sit in with some friends next door at the Roof Top Café. Dave asks if he would rather make a little money. Dave and Lonnie Jacobson became best friends and musical partners playing together for the next 27 years. According to Dave, Lonnie was by far the best bass player he ever worked with.
They always had a great band at Hornblowers. Beginning in 1978, there were significant changes in the Key West music scene. The increase in tourism, a burgeoning gay community, and a vibrant Jazz scene. Dave Burns and Lonnie Jacobson had a steady gig at the “Top of the La Concha” for a little over two years (1989 – 1991). They also played upstairs at Louie’s Backyard. According to Dave, in the early 90s, the really good Jazz players just stopped coming to Key West and the once vibrant Jazz scene slowly disintegrated.
Authors footnote: Key West author John Leslie wrote a series of murder mystery books using Dave Burns as the basis for the main character Gideon Lowry, who was a private investigator that also played piano in a Key West Jazz club. Several Gideon Lowry titles include “Killing Me Softly”, “Night and Day”, “Love For Sale”, and “Blue Moon.” Dave’s had issues with how he was portrayed as the main character, he never drank Rum and Coke.
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