ARTHUR MIGLIAZZI

Pianist Arthur Migliazza became part of the Tucson musical landscape when he, as an 11 year-old wunderkind, he played the Tucson Blues Festival.  He explains that he's "always been drawn to music. Even as a kid, I would try to listen to anything on the radio. I'd take out pots and pans and beat on them. Music can be so deep and complex and so simple at the same time. You can study it for lifetimes and never know everything about it."

The thing he loves about the Blues is that "you can improvise. In classical you can't do that. Blues is mostly improvisation. That was right up my alley. Early on, my piano teacher would show me lines and I would go home and learn them. It wouldn't be too long before I changed them a little bit. I am always drawn to that freedom of creative expression."

Arthur's musical influences include Otis Spann, Professor Longhair, Art Tatum, James Booker, and Oscar Peterson, and he reports that Franz Liszt blows his mind.