PIANIST JESS STACY DEAD AT 90

Jess Stacy, a Cape Girardeau native who rose to fame as Benny Goodman's pianist and went on to become one of the most influential musicians of the Swing Era, has died. He was 90.

Stacy died Sunday of heart failure at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, longtime friend and jazz historian Floyd Levin said. Stacy had been sick for several years, Levin said.

Stacy was best known as the pianist in Goodman's orchestra from 1935 to 1939. His most famous performance came in 1938, when Goodman's band headlined the first jazz concert at New York's Carnegie Hall. Stacy's improvisation on "Sing Sing Sing" at that concert is considered one of the great piano solos in jazz history.

The man who began his career at Central High School as a member of Peg Meyer's band, The Agony Four, was named the best pianist in jazz in the 1940 Down Beat poll. He won the poll four straight years.

Later, Stacy appeared with orchestras led by Bob Crosby, Horace Heidt and Tommy Dorsey. In 1945, he formed his own big band.

Stacy also was a prolific recording artist, releasing solo albums as well as appearing on records by Goodman, Crosby, Eddie Condon, Ziggy Elman, Lionel Hampton and many others. He played on more than 400 recordings in all.

He was born Aug. 4, 1904, in Cape Girardeau, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Fred L. Stacy of Cape Girardeau. His father, known as "Pop," a railroad brakeman, was a longtime lifeguard at the Cape Girardeau Municipal Pool after his retirement.

In 1920, he made his professional debut aboard one of the riverboats, which first exposed him to New Orleans-style jazz.

He heard Louis Armstrong in Cape Girardeau on the S.S. Capitol.

He was a student of Professor J.C. Brandt at Southeast Missouri State University and for a time was employed at the Clark Music Co. co-owned by Walter F. Kempe Sr..

In his book "Back Woods Jazz in the Twenties," longtime Cape Girardeau musician Peg Meyer described the lineup of The Agony Four as himself on sax, Stacy on piano and trumpet, Martell Lovell on violin and Bergman Snider on drums.

They later became Peg Meyer's Melody Kings and often performed in clown costumes designed by Stacy's mother. Meyer, who lives at the Lutheran Home in Cape Girardeau, wrote of Stacy: "He was born with a natural talent and fingers that could span 13 piano keys (five notes over an octave) and developed a determination that he would not just play the piano, he would excel at it. After school when the rest of us would play pool or seek other amusement, he would hurry home, climb on the piano stool, and practice arpeggios by the hour.

"...Jess realized that with his great hands he could accomplish results impossible for most pianists. He developed a left hand performance that a musical ear can identify on a recording even if the artists' names are not provided."

Stacy moved to Chicago before joining Goodman's band and would continue performing into the mid-1970s. In 1974, he came out of retirement to perform at the Newport Jazz Festival and at Carnegie Hall.

In 1975, he withdrew from the music scene again and lived in the Hollywood Hills with his wife, Pat, Levin said.

In addition to his wife, Stacy is survived by a son, Fred Stacy; five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. There were no immediate plans for services.

In his book "A Closer Walk," clarinetist Pete Fountain recalled that as a youth his father forced him to do his practicing in a shed, which became his imaginary studio. "I even had my own band: The wash tub was Krupa; the lawn mower was Ziggy Ellman, and the old glider was Jess Stacy."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.