Photo by Bill Solomon
(MONTCLAIR, NJ) -- Multifaceted musician/composer Eric Heilner released a new album of blues & boogie-woogie piano music in May 2024. While Heilner is primarily a composer of contemporary classical music, Blues Phantasia, highlights Heilner's unique interpretations of the boogie woogie piano tradition with four original tunes along with two tracks that honor Heilner's deep affection for the blues.
Blues Phantasia is available on all standard streaming platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and is available for download on Bandcamp.
“Eric is a musical chameleon, able to take his classical musical background and infuse his music with a wonderful kaleidoscope of fascinating tints and shades, moods and melodies, his fingers running up and down the keyboard with rollicking enthusiasm.” -- Blue Notes and Conversations.
Honky Tonk Train Blues - "It was the late summer of 1965 and I was about to enter my senior year of high school. Earlier that summer I had taken a course in computer programming at Stevens Institute of Technology (sponsored by the National Science Foundation) – setting the course for my later career as a computer programmer and branding me for life as a computer nerd. However, on this particular day I found myself at home alone and, having nothing better to do, I started rummaging in my father’s record collection - my dad had very eclectic tastes in music ranging from Bach to folk music."
"My eye was caught by an album Boogie Woogie, Jump and Kansas City distributed by the Library of Congress. I put it on the turntable and this strange haunting music came on. It sounded sort of like rock & roll, but my teenage mind detected something deeper (earthier?) happening. There was Tampa red and Speckled Red and some guy was singing about a Monday gal and a Tuesday gal, etc – my naïve 16 year old mind couldn’t quite wrap my head around this - 'How does this guy do it?'
"And then a piano instrumental started – Honky Tonk Train Blues - recorded by Meade 'Lux' Lewis in 1927 – and I fell into a trance. Each time the music finished the 12 bar cycle and started the next verse, it felt like Lewis was talking directly to me – 'Hey Eric, you think that was cool, now check out what I’m gonna do next'. I listened to it over and over, and then sat down at the piano and worked out the basics of what Lewis was playing. Late in the afternoon my father got home from his job at the public library in Passaic, NJ – and was startled to see/hear his gawky, nerdy, pimply-faced teenage son playing the piano and somehow channeling a long dead black blues player.
"I am now much more acquainted with all the blues & boogie greats, but Honky Tonk Train Blues is still my 'heart beat'. While I pride myself on having my own style of playing and avoid doing note for note copies of the originals, this is the one exception – The album finishes with a fairly accurate replica of the original 1927 Meade 'Lux' Lewis version."
"Chains is a pop tune written by Carole King & Gerry Goffin; it was a hit single for an all girl group The Cookies in 1962 and was covered by the Beatles on their first album (George sang lead!). Now fast forward. In the late 1970s I played with a central NJ based band Heavy Trucking. Heavy Trucking was very popular in the area and even opened up for the soon to be world famous Bruce Springsteen (this was after his first album). Heavy Trucking did a blues/rock version Chains which I really enjoyed. playing. That arrangement has stuck with me through the years."
"Blues Phantasia, Hills & Valleys, In A Mist, and RumBoogie - These original tunes are the musical core of the album. I could give detailed descriptions of the origins and creation of these original tunes but I’ll let them speak for themselves."
Eric Heilner comes from a storied musical lineage. His father Irwin Heilner, was a life long composer of classical music. In the 1920s and 30s, Irwin Heilner studied composition with Robert Sessions and the legendary Nadia Boulanger, and was a member of Aaron Copland’s Young Composers Group. Heilner’s sister, Deborah Holland, is an accomplished singer/song writer most well-known for leading the group Animal Logic – which included Stewart Copeland, drummer of the Police, and world-famous bassist Stanley Clarke.
As a child, Heilner grew up in a household imbued with classical music. He took piano lessons starting at age 6 and advanced so far as to tie for third place in a New Jersey children’s piano competition at age 13. As a teenager, Heilner abandoned classical piano to pursue girls and other social activities. However, he did not completely give up playing – an accidental exposure to the seminal boogie-woogie piano piece Honkey Tonk Train Blues by Meade Lux Lewis (1927) led to a lifelong passion for playing blues & boogie woogie piano.
In 1967, as a freshman in college, after hearing the Doors song ‘Light My Fire’, realizing that he could apply his boogie-woogie piano skills to both pursue girls and play music at the same time, he took up playing rock and roll. After graduating from college, with his degree in Physics in hand, Heilner was briefly a research assistant at Bell Laboratories. But to the dismay of his parents, he gave up his day job to become a world famous rock and roll star.
In the 1970s, Heilner toured the East Coast with a variety of different bands playing both the club and college concert circuit and “opened up” for the such acts as The Byrds, The Raspberries (remember them?), and the then rising Bruce Springsteen. His closest brush with fame and fortune was when he played keyboards on an album produced by Jack Douglas – most well known for producing John Lennon, Aerosmith, etc, etc.
However, after turning 30, he gradually retired from the music business, tucked his electric piano in the corner of the attic, and become a respectable member of society. Until his recent retirement he worked for a software company and developed applications used by big business, government institutions and hospitals.
One evening in 2003, he was attending a show of a comedy improv group called The Lunatic Fringe. The regular piano player did not show up. Heilner was rudely yanked out of the audience as a substitute and thrust back in the limelight. With the encouragement of his wife and family, Heilner slowly came out of musical retirement and started playing R&R and R&B. Heilner now appears regularly with some of the top blues and rock groups in the North Jersey area.
In the early 2010s, with his children grown up, Heilner found that he actually had free time on his hands. He was drawn back to his classical roots, he rediscovered Mozart, Bach, and Chopin – and started studying piano at the Evening School at Juilliard. However, he was increasingly drawn to composition. Musical themes – entire pieces – would play through his mind as he walked down the street. Realizing the change it would make in his life, Heilner resisted it as long as he could, but he eventually gave in to internal peer pressure and in the fall of 2014 took up studying composition at the Juilliard Extension. Within a few years, Heilner was composing fully developed pieces for chamber ensembles. He joined several New York based composer societies and has had public performances of his compositions at various venues in New York City and most recently in Moscow.
In October 2020 Heilner completed the most ambitious project of his career. With the encouragement of his composition professors and fellow composers, Heilner reconnected with producer Jack Douglas and together they recorded an album of his compositions. The album – Modern Sounds in Classical Music – is a unique synthesis of classical music, rock & roll, R&B, jazz, and African tribal music – and points to a new direction music can take in the 21st century. The album has gotten excellent reviews and was featured in an article on Baristanet (a local news web site). The album is available for streaming on all the popular digital platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube.
In September of 2021, with the encouragement of his daughter, Heilner released a novelty single Sticky Glue – which was originally written and recorded in 1983. Sticky Glue has gotten airplay on local college radio stations.
Throughout the COVID pandemic, Heilner has continued to compose – he has completed a large scale work for string orchestra as well as assorted pieces for orchestra, chamber ensembles and a new high energy piece titled Rumble for Two Pianos. With the opening up of concert halls, his pieces have been performed in New York, Moscow, Lviv, Milan, Vienna, and Los Angeles.
Heilner has also had significant successes in the international competition arena. His composition Excursion for Piano Trio #4 recently won first place in the prestigious Vienna Classical Music Academy Competition. In 2022 his Suite for Strings, Episode 2 won 3rd place in the ‘Città di Barletta’ International Composition Contest; and his composition Variations on Aria of Asker won an honorable mention in the International Composition Competition of the Vienna Classical Music Academy.
Meanwhile, Heilner has not abandoned his boogie-woogie roots. He continues to play rock & roll keyboards in his favorite local haunts in North Jersey. In January 2024 he represented the North Jersey Blues Society in the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tennessee.
