Dear Mike,
I preferred to start a new item, to not interfere with "It's genos time" Ronbo post.
You are right, Harrys bar has always had good pianobarists (usually a keyboard player and a girl singing). I enjoyed many times.
Till some time ago Rome was full of piano bars. Every good hotel would have one, and many lounges would so. Many musicians were living of it. many other would play in piano bar as an additional source of incomes.
That created a rich amount of good performers and contributed to a general improvement of the playing level, besides a wealthy market of second hand gears.
DJ trend has practically destroyed the piano-bar world. And young Italian don't care for it. But Harry's bar is one of the very few leftover.
The lockdowns have obviously done the rest.... But I'm sure that there will be a kind of recovery, with a strong will of living again, even more intensely. Many hotels in vacation places are all booked for the summer, and this is a very good sign.
Going back to the arrangers, it is true that (after the years of Roland, Roland, Roland) Yamaha and Korg are, here in Italy, widely used by piano-barists.
I personally had Korg dor 20 years, but now I have Yamaha only (a beautiful Clavinova CVP309 in polished ebony, and the monster, Genos). The reason of this change is IMHO that even though Korg is more powerful for programming (sounds, styles, ecc.), Yamaha is more friendly when playing. And Genos sounds and Revo drums are so nice.
I hope you will be back in Rome sometime. If/when you will do so, please let me know in advance: we will have a chance to share a nice spaghetti alla Carbonara in a right place!
Angelo
