Recently there have been some discussions here about how well certain people play an arranger. Also the discussions have gone to why even play one at all? Why not just play with great musicians especially in the jazz genre? Well I can only answer for myself, so here goes. I grew up playing B3 and grand piano. For years I was equally at home on both. In recent years, I have given up the organ in favor of arranger Keyboards. What I use them for are to provide good, clean orchestrations for my vocals. My singing has always been my drawing card and the arranger KB provides the best platform for offering great, easy to produce backgrounds for those vocals. I still do a series of piano concerts in which I play grand piano and sing. I do primarily Great American Songbook material as well as some new age and well known classics and some Broadway for a well balanced program. My point here is to remind everyone that this is an arranger forum, so if you are not a lover of arranger boards, perhaps you don't belong here. Just my opinion. Guys, it's all about the music. The music that gets to the audience because without them, most of us would be gone.

Joe