{"id":7066,"date":"2015-11-09T23:26:09","date_gmt":"2015-11-10T07:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/?p=7066"},"modified":"2015-11-10T09:03:24","modified_gmt":"2015-11-10T17:03:24","slug":"johnny-costa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2015\/11\/johnny-costa\/","title":{"rendered":"Johnny Costa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Johnyy-Costa-Classic-Costa-005.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Johnyy-Costa-Classic-Costa-005.jpg\" alt=\"Johnyy Costa - Classic Costa 005\" width=\"194\" height=\"250\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-7067\" \/><\/a>The recent <em>Rifftides<\/em> review of pianist Sullivan Fortner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s new album mentions Johnny Costa (pictured) as an influence. The influence came early. Like millions of other American children, Fortner grew up watching <em>Mr. Rogers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Neighborhood<\/em>. He was captivated by the music Costa played with his trio on the television show. Costa was Rogers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 musical director from the birth of the program in 1968 to Costa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death in 1996 at the age of 74. Mr. Rogers made this very short documentary about his friend. <\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xxZWCY-RXaQ\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><p>Costa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s virtuosity led Art Tatum to call him \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The white Tatum.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d There is plenty of virtuosity in his solo version of Victor Young\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Stella By Starlight,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but the principal factor here is the sensitivity that Fred Rogers pointed out. <\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/a6Je1cqX478\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><p>In order to devote himself to his family, Costa confined his career to Pittsburgh and nearby parts of western Pennsylvania. Consequently, considering the size of his talent he recorded relatively little.  The albums he did make are timeless. A few of them are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Johnny-Costa\/e\/B000AQ6K0I\/?_encoding=UTF8&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325&#038;linkCode=ur2&#038;tag=rifftidougram-20\"target=\"_blank\">available here<\/a>.<br \/>\n<font size = \"2\"><strong>(Costa photo &#8220;\u00a9Rollo Phlecks)<\/strong><\/font> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The recent Rifftides review of pianist Sullivan Fortner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s new album mentions Johnny Costa (pictured) as an influence. The influence came early. Like millions of other American children, Fortner grew up watching Mr. Rogers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Neighborhood. He was captivated by the music Costa played with his trio on the television show. Costa was Rogers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 musical director from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7066","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7066\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}