Performing: I play solo piano at private parties. I get most of those gigs from my piano tuning clients. They’ll have me in to service their pianos, and when I’m done, I’ll play five or ten minutes worth of tunes. That usually gets me back for an anniversary or cocktail party. I play keyboards with a group called Sam Green and the Party Band. We do Motown.
Influences: Oscar Peterson, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Horace Silver. Tommy Flanagan, Ahmad Jamal, Art Tatum, Monty Alexander — those are my favorite jazz artists. My favorite classical guys are Vladimir Horowitz and Arthur Rubinstein.
I play because: It’s what makes me happy. If I’m not involved in music for more than a day or two, I go through withdrawal. I need that fix. Music is like my religion.
Oscar Peterson, The Essential Oscar Peterson: The Swinger (Verve Records)
Andrew Marks credits a recording of Canadian jazz great Oscar Peterson with leading him to a life of piano. “My friend played me the first Oscar Peterson I’d ever heard,” he says. “It was ‘On Green Dolphin Street.’ That was around my freshman year of high school. It changed my life.”