#13: What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

Playing Scrabble, eating buchty and listening to the Weavers.

This recording is from the same 2006 session as #7.

What Are You Doing?

#12: Willow, Weep For Me

This is one of my signature tunes. I classify it as a "bluesy" ballad.

Incidentally, there's an almost unrecognizable version of this song that is often used during the scene changes on the Diane Rehm Show podcast. Thanks for listening!

Willow, Weep For Me

#11: Skylark

A "walking" ballad.

Skylark

#10: There's A Small Hotel

Now, I'm aware that there's a contingent of you out there who are secretly fuming, "Why does he keep uploading all these annoying fast tunes? We want more Rodgers & Hart ballads!"

This will be a great week for you.

I count at least four different types of ballads. This is a "swing" ballad. Like, your porch swing.

There's A Small Hotel

#9: Moanin'

I have been playing this arrangement since day 1 at Nordstrom back in 2005. It was basically an instant hit, and I haven't changed it much at all. Also a great one to use at jam sessions, or with a trio, really anywhere. People should definitely play this song more often.

Moanin'

#8: Will You Still Be Mine?

OK, Christmas is over, and it's time to get down to business.

Let's discuss the "Dan Wielunski Style". What kind of a pianist am I? Is this jazz, or something else? Who are my stylistic antecedents? There are ways in which my playing is deliberately ordinary or old-fashioned, and yet I don't know of too many solo pianists who play like this, even among the old guys; the first few influences I would cite are trio pianists (Erroll Garner, Oscar Peterson, Ahmad Jamal).

This is a relatively recent addition to my repertoire, and a great demonstration of my concept of solo piano playing.

Will You Still Be Mine?

#7: Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

From a recording session in a real live studio, fall 2006. My playing had a brittle edge back then that I've worked hard to get rid of (compare to White Christmas, for example). But isn't it glorious to play on a piano that's actually in tune? I didn't get to do that in 2008.

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

#6: Go Tell It On The Mountain

Merry Christmas from the Church Of The Abiding Savior, Lutheran!

Ralph Hester is the soloist at the beginning.

Go Tell It On The Mountain

#5: Jingle Bells

Tonight I played for a Christmas party at Yvonne Wasilewski's home in Chapel Hill. (Nice name, right?) This was quite an enthusiastic bunch of singers.

Jingle Bells

#4: God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen

Full disclosure: I confess to making an edit. It's all the same take, but I thought it was one verse too long. See if you can find the cut.

Also, Karen was able to add me as an iGoogle widget using the "atom feed" link at the bottom of the page. I made a button to do that more easily (impressed, web-designer friends?). So that's another way to get updates if you don't want to use iTunes.

God Rest Ye

#3: "The" Christmas Song

People are always trying to sing along when I play this one, with mixed results (it's a hard song to sing). While I generally encourage singing as it covers up my mistakes, it has made it difficult to get a clean take. Here you can hear someone whistling near the beginning--it's not me, I swear.

By the way, what a lame song title! Who came up with that?

Chestnuts

Bonus: Freylakhs fun der Khupe

This is my alter ego, Violin Dan. That's why it's a "bonus" and doesn't get an official number.

The band is "South of Delancey".

Suzie Bolotin - piano (and vocals on some tunes)

Wilma Wallmark - trombone (a.k.a. "Trombone Willie")

Dan Wielunski - violin

Fred Jacobowitz - clarinet

I replaced Bert Chessin, Ethan's dad, who moved out west. You remember Ethan from the Yale Klezmer Band, right?

Freylakhs fun der Khupe

#2: Frosty the Snowman

I am working on technical details like finding the optimal file size and bit rate. (And where on the piano to place the recorder.) In the future files will be somewhat smaller, but none of these should be too bad.

Frosty

#1: White Christmas

Welcome to the Piano Dan blog. To add me as a podcast, click on the link near the top of the page that looks like this:  

If that isn't working (I'm new at this), you can do it manually. Open up iTunes, go to "Advanced: Subscribe to Podcast" and copy-and-paste the following URL into the box:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/PianoDan

Then iTunes will download a new song automatically every day (even if you forget to check the blog).

Here is today's song.

White Christmas