eJazzNews Archive

JazzTrenzz: Between Sets with Beegie Adair

Originally published on eJazzNews · · By Karl Stober · Interviews

In May 2005, eJazzNews columnist Karl Stober interviewed pianist Beegie Adair for his JazzTrenzz series about An Affair to Remember, an album of 1950s film songs by the Beegie Adair Trio with the Jeff Steinberg Orchestra. Adair, born Bobbe Gorin Long in Cave City, Kentucky, in 1937, was by then a central figure in Nashville’s jazz scene. She died at her home in Franklin, Tennessee, on January 23, 2022, at the age of 84.

What Adair said in 2005

Adair described herself as a melody player and a lover of the American songbook who tried to stay true to what the composers intended, and she called jazz “the root music of America.” Listeners, she said, told her that she seemed to “play the words.” For An Affair to Remember the trio recorded first and Steinberg then wrote the string arrangements around what they had played, so the chord changes stayed the trio’s own. Most of her studio work took one to three takes, because the band rehearsed before going in.

She named becoming an official Steinway Artist as the moment she felt most fulfilled, a dream she had had since college. She also spoke openly about Raynaud’s disease, which reduced the feeling and mobility in her fingertips and was worse in winter. Asked about future plans, she mentioned composer collections such as Harry Warren, Henry Mancini or Harold Arlen, solo albums and romantic collections, and, as a dream project, a 1950s-style album of Chet Baker songs and Peggy Lee and June Christy ballads. She said she would love to share a stage with Tony Bennett, and to play again with Marian McPartland and with her old college friend Mike Longo, with whom she had given a duo concert. Longo’s own JazzTrenzz interview from 2004 is also in our archive: Between Sets with Mike Longo.

Who Beegie Adair was

Adair started piano at five, earned a degree in music education at Western Kentucky University and taught music to children before moving to Nashville in 1961. There she became a session and broadcast musician, playing for The Johnny Cash Show, Ralph Emery’s morning show and WSM’s Noon Show, and recording with Dinah Shore, Peggy Lee, Chet Atkins and Dolly Parton, among many others. She co-led the Adair-Solee Quartet with saxophonist Denis Solee, which later became the Be-Bop Co-Op, and helped start the Nashville Jazz Workshop. Her trio with bassist Roger Spencer and drummer Chris Brown made 35 studio albums, and she appeared on more than 100 recordings in all. She was named a Steinway Artist in 2002, hosted the NPR program Improvised Thoughts and twice stood in for Marian McPartland as host of Piano Jazz. For other pianists of her generation, see our guide to the greatest jazz pianists.

After the interview

Some of those ideas became records: solo piano albums, romance collections, a Peggy Lee tribute, I Love Being Here with You (2011), and a tribute to Tony Bennett, The Good Life (2014). In 2010 the trio was the top-selling jazz artist in Japan, from 2011 it played Birdland in New York every year, and on October 7, 2016, it sold out its Carnegie Hall debut. Her first live album, The Real Thing (2012), spent weeks in the JazzWeek top 20. Her husband, Billy Adair, a jazz educator at Vanderbilt’s Blair School of Music, died in February 2014 after 38 years of marriage.

Adair died at home in Franklin on January 23, 2022. The obituaries published by NPR and by the Western Kentucky University student newspaper did not give a cause of death. According to the WKU Herald, she was to be buried at Williamson Memorial Gardens in Franklin.

Where to start listening

  • Escape to New York: her first album under her own name, with bassist Bob Cranshaw and drummer Gregory Hutchinson.
  • An Affair to Remember: Romantic Movie Songs of the 1950s (2005): the trio and orchestra album discussed in this interview.
  • The Real Thing (2012): her first live recording.

Sources

This page is based on an article from the original eJazzNews archive (2001 to 2018), with background and sources added in 2026. The original text is not republished here. You can read the original as it appeared on eJazzNews via the Internet Archive.
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