Today, jazz flourishes in Athens—or at least did before the virus lockdown. Many clubs dot the city, and gifted Greek jazz musicians perform there. Jazz greatness in Greece begins with a pianist whose name is likely new to you—Manolis Mikelis (above). That's because Mikelis barely recorded, preferring to perform throughout Europe during his lifetime.
Back in the mid-1950s, when the U.S. State Department began sending American jazz musicians on goodwill tours to the far reaches of the world, artists found an uncertain environment in Athens. Back then, Greece's civil war between 1946 and 1949 was still fresh in the minds of many Greeks, and political emotions ran hot. Cultural tensions also bubbled up.
According to Lisa E. Davenport's Jazz Diplomacy: Promoting America in the Cold War Era, a State Department official in a memo frowned on Dizzy Gillespie's "dizzy" behavior in Athens in 1956, noting he had arrived an hour late to a buffet dinner and that sophisticated, conservative Athenians preferred the "high arts" to jazz. Compared to the Soviet Union's Russian Folk Ballet touring at the same time, the memo continued, Gillespie's audiences in Greece were smaller, and jazz might not be the best U.S. offering for holding off communist influenes.
But Dizzy's dinner tardiness and mischievous sense of humor didn't stop Athenian jazz fans and Greek jazz musicians from admiring the trumpet great and other American artists whose albums they heard or collected. One of these admiring Greek artists was Mikelis. [Photo above of Dizzy Gillespie and his band performing at a matinee for Greek students in 1956, courtesy of the Marshall Stearns Collection, Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University]
According to Jimi Mentis in Athens, who turned me on to Mikelis last week, the jazz great was born in 1924 and, as a child, studied classical piano for six years. Here's what Jimi wrote me about Mikelis:
Forced to switch to accordion after the death of his father during Nazi occupation in 1942 to support his family, Mikelis with a few other Greek musicians became the first group to play jazz in post-war Greece to great acclaim.
In 1950, Mikelis moved to posh Beirut, Lebanon, where he remained for four years, resuming his classical piano studies while playing at clubs to make ends meet. He then played gigs in Italy and Paris, a jazz center then. But jazz work for non-Americans and non-French was difficult to come by.
So Mikelis moved on to Frankfurt, Germany, to play on bases where U.S. Forces were stationed as well as at the Domicil du Jazz, an after-hours club there. In Germany, he worked with Percy Heath during the Modern Jazz Quartet's two-week stint in 1955. After a short time in Morocco, he he lived in Spain for four years.
There, he worked the best clubs in Madrid, such as the Pasapoga and Whisky Jazz, playing in 1960 with members of the Quincy Jones Orchestra, including Phil Woods, Sahib Shihab, Benny Bailey and Les Spann. He and Spanish piano virtuoso Tete Montoliu became good friends.
After a stint with Don Ellis in Germany, where he met George Russell, he returned to post civil war-torn Greece in 1962. By then, Greece was awash in Marshall Plan cash, and the demand for skilled musicians was high. Mikelis also recorded for film, playing piano and vibes.
But it was the new Athens Hilton's Galaxy Bar (above), with its stupendous view of the city, that became his home for 12 years. When Stan Getz visited Athens in 1967 for the Athens Festival under the Acropolis for four concerts between July 10 and 16, Getz had a young Chick Corea on piano. In his spare time, Corea could be seen at the Galaxy either cherishing Mikelis's mastery or sitting in on drums.
After the Hilton period, Mikelis became a fixture of the Athens jazz scene, jamming with all the greats who visited in the 1970s, such as Ray Brown, Milt Jackson, Grady Tate and Monty Alexander.
Mikelis idolized Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson for technique and Bill Evans for lyricism. But as he said, "Red Garland (above) and Tommy Flanagan play with the most soul." That's where his heart was. This shy and self-effacing piano giant died in 1990 at age 66.
Here, with a special thanks to Jimi, are links to clips of Mikelis's extraordinary playing, both in concert and on an album. You can find The Flowering Almond Tree at Spotify:
Here's a rare taped performance by Mikelis...
From the CD, The Flowering Almond Tree, here's Polka Dots and Moonbeams...
Here's Watch What Happens...
Here's On Green Dolphin Street...
Here's The Flowering Almond Tree, a solo piano performance played for the first time in front of an audience, as he says in Greek on the recording...
And here's Satin Doll, Misty, You Stepped Out of a Dream and other songs...
A terrible shame that a U.S. producer didn't bring Mikelis over to New York for a series of recording sessions. As a result, he has remained Greece's greatest jazz secret and treasure. And now you know, too.