Johnny Varro is a pianist with roots in the swing

Swing (genre)

Swing music, also known as swing jazz or simply swing, is a form of jazz music that developed in the early 1930s and became a distinctive style by 1935 in the United States...

 style of jazz. He also is a leader and arranger.

Commodore Music Shop

He began studying piano at the age of ten. During his teenage years he was introduced to jazz by way of the Commodore Music Shop in New York City. There he met the manager Jack Crystal (father of Billy Crystal

Billy Crystal

William Edward "Billy" Crystal is an American actor, writer, producer, comedian and film director. He gained prominence in the 1970s for playing Jodie Dallas on the ABC sitcom Soap and became a Hollywood film star during the late 1980s and 1990s, appearing in the critical and box office successes...

), who was running jam sessions on the Lower East Side

Lower East Side

The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....

. At these sessions Johnny met some of the greatest players of the era, such as Willie "The Lion" Smith, Big Sid Catlett, Joe Thomas

Joe Thomas

-Cleveland Browns:Thomas signed a 6-year contract worth $43 million, $23 million guaranteed, including a voidable year, with the Browns. Thomas won the starting left tackle job, with previous Browns left tackle Kevin Shaffer moving to right tackle. He made his NFL debut versus the Pittsburgh...

, Hot Lips Page, Joe Sullivan

Joe Sullivan

Michael Joseph "Joe" O'Sullivan was an American jazz pianist.Sullivan was the ninth child of Irish immigrant parents. He studied classical piano for 12 years and at age 17, he began to play popular music in a club where he was exposed to jazz...

, Pete Brown

Pete Brown

Peter Ronald Brown is an English performance poet and lyricist.Best known for his collaborations with Jack Bruce, Brown also worked with The Battered Ornaments, formed his own group Pete Brown & Piblokto!, and worked with Graham Bond and Phil Ryan. Brown also writes film scores and formed a film...

 and others. The experience of sitting in for Joe Sullivan and Willie "The Lion" Smith was invaluable and soon allowed Johnny to become a hired player.

New York: Bobby Hackett and Eddie Condon

Johnny's first professional job was with Bobby Hackett

Bobby Hackett

Robert Leo "Bobby" Hackett was an US jazz musician who played trumpet, cornet and guitar with the bands of Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman in the late thirties and early forties.-Biography:...

 touring the East Coast with his quartet. In 1954 he worked at Nick's with Phil Napoleon

Phil Napoleon

Phil Napoleon , born Filippo Napoli, was an early jazz trumpeter and bandleader born in Boston, Massachusetts...

 and later with Pee Wee Erwin

Pee Wee Erwin

Pee Wee Erwin was an American jazz trumpeter.-Biography:Erwin started on trumpet at age four. He played in several territory bands before joining the groups of Joe Haymes and Isham Jones...

. In 1957 Eddie Condon

Eddie Condon

Albert Edwin Condon , better known as Eddie Condon, was a jazz banjoist, guitarist, and bandleader. A leading figure in the so-called "Chicago school" of early Dixieland, he also played piano and sang on occasion....

 asked Johnny to play at his club as intermission pianist. During that gig he met more musicians who began calling him for jobs. The Condon gig extended into Johnny becoming Condon's band pianist. The players in Condon's band at this time included Buck Clayton

Buck Clayton

Buck Clayton was an American jazz trumpet player who was a leading member of Count Basie’s "Old Testament" orchestra and a leader of mainstream-oriented jam session recordings in the 1950s. His principal influence was Louis Armstrong...

, Wild Bill Davison

Wild Bill Davison

Wild' Bill Davison was a fiery jazz cornet player who emerged in the 1920s, but did not achieve recognition until the 1940s...

, Pee Wee Russell

Pee Wee Russell

Charles Ellsworth Russell, much better known by his nickname Pee Wee Russell, was a jazz musician. Early in his career he played clarinet and saxophones, but eventually focused solely on clarinet....

, Cutty Cutshall

Cutty Cutshall

Robert Dewees "Cutty" Cutshall was an American jazz trombonist.Cutshall played in Pittsburgh early in his career, making his first major tour in 1934 with Charley Dornberger. He joined Jan Savitt's orchestra in 1938, then played with Benny Goodman in the early 1940s...

, Lou McGarity

Lou McGarity

Lou McGarity was an American jazz trombonist, violinist and vocalist born in Athens, GA, perhaps most noteworthy for his works with Benny Goodman throughout the 1940s. During this period and throughout his career McGarity also collaborated often with Eddie Condon...

, George Wettling

George Wettling

George Wettling was an American jazz drummer.He was one of the young white Chicagoans who fell in love with jazz as a result of hearing King Oliver's band at the Lincoln Gardens in Chicago in the early 1920s...

, Yank Lawson

Yank Lawson

John Rhea "Yank" Lawson was a jazz trumpeter known for Dixieland and swing music....

, Peanuts Hucko

Peanuts Hucko

Michael Andrew "Peanuts" Hucko was an American big band musician. His primary instrument was the clarinet.-Early life and education:...

 and others.

For the next several years between the Condon tours, Johnny worked most of the jazz rooms around New York including The Embers, The Roundtable, Condon's Uptown (with Edmund Hall

Edmund Hall

Edmund Henry Hartley Hall was an Australian politician who represented the Western Australian Legislative Council district of Central Province from 1928 until 1947, and the Legislative Assembly seat of Geraldton from 1947 until 1950...

), The Metropole and many others. Musicians such as Henry "Red" Allen, Roy Eldridge

Roy Eldridge

Roy David Eldridge , nicknamed "Little Jazz" was an American jazz trumpet player. His sophisticated use of harmony, including the use of tritone substitutions, his virtuosic solos and his strong influence on Dizzy Gillespie mark him as one of the most exciting musicians of the swing era and a...

, Coleman Hawkins

Coleman Hawkins

Coleman Randolph Hawkins was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Hawkins was one of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument. As Joachim E. Berendt explained, "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn"...

, Bobby Hackett

Bobby Hackett

Robert Leo "Bobby" Hackett was an US jazz musician who played trumpet, cornet and guitar with the bands of Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman in the late thirties and early forties.-Biography:...

, Charlie Shavers

Charlie Shavers

Charles James Shavers , known as Charlie Shavers, was an American swing era jazz trumpet player who played at one time or another with Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Eldridge, Johnny Dodds, Jimmy Noone, Sidney Bechet, Midge Williams and Billie Holiday...

, Jo Jones

Jo Jones

Jo Jones was an American jazz drummer.Known as Papa Jo Jones in his later years, he was sometimes confused with another influential jazz drummer, Philly Joe Jones...

 and Jonah Jones

Jonah Jones

Jonah Jones was a jazz trumpeter who is perhaps best known for creating concise versions of jazz and swing standards that appealed to a mass audience. In jazz, he might be best appreciated for his work with Stuff Smith. He was sometimes referred to as "King Louis II," a reference to Louis Armstrong...

 helped further his musical education.

Dukes of Dixieland and the Gleason Show

In 1965 he moved to Miami Beach and worked on the Jackie Gleason

Jackie Gleason

Jackie Gleason was an American comedian, actor and musician. He was known for his brash visual and verbal comedy style, especially by his character Ralph Kramden on The Honeymooners, a situation-comedy television series. His most noted film roles were as Minnesota Fats in the drama film The...

 Show. He also worked with Flip Phillips

Flip Phillips

Flip Phillips was an American jazz tenor saxophone and clarinet player. He is best remembered for his work with Jazz at the Philharmonic from 1946 to 1957.-Biography:...

, Billy Butterfield, Phil Napoleon

Phil Napoleon

Phil Napoleon , born Filippo Napoli, was an early jazz trumpeter and bandleader born in Boston, Massachusetts...

 and toured with the Dukes of Dixieland.

Gatsby's and Swing 7

Then came another move in 1979 to Los Angeles, California, where he lived, played and toured for the next 14 years. He played with Eddie Miller, Dick Cathcart

Dick Cathcart

Charles Richard Cathcart was an American Dixieland trumpet player.Born and raised in Michigan City, Indiana; Cathcart was best known as a member of the Lawrence Welk orchestra, in which he appeared on the Maestro's television program from 1962 to 1968...

, Tommy Newsom

Tommy Newsom

Thomas Penn "Tommy" Newsom was a saxophone player in the NBC Orchestra on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, for which he later became assistant director. Newsom was frequently the band's substitute director, whenever Doc Severinsen was away from the show or filling in for announcer Ed...

, Red Norvo

Red Norvo

Red Norvo was one of jazz's early vibraphonists, known as "Mr. Swing". He helped establish the xylophone, marimba and later the vibraphone as viable jazz instruments...

, Abe Lincoln

Abe Lincoln (musician)

Abram "Abe" Lincoln was an American Dixieland jazz trombonist.Lincoln began playing trombone at age five, and worked professionally from the early 1920s...

, Bob Havens

Bob Havens

Bob Havens is an American big band and jazz musician who appeared on The Lawrence Welk Show from 1960 to 1982. His instrument is the trombone....

 and Jack Sheldon

Jack Sheldon

Jack Sheldon is an American bebop and West Coast jazz trumpeter, singer, and actor. He is a trumpet player and was a comedian on The Merv Griffin Show, as well as the voice heard on several episodes of the educational music television series Schoolhouse Rock.-Biography:Sheldon was born in...

. He also did a five-year solo stint at Gatsby's Restaurant in Brentwood. It was in Los Angeles where the idea was born to organize a swing group covering the styles of the 30's, 40's and 50's. This group, known as the Swing 7, has played many of the Jazz festivals and parties.

Arbors Records, Concerts and Jazz Festivals

The last move took him in 1993 to Florida where he now resides, in the Tampa Bay area. Johnny is continually touring North America and the entire World playing Jazz Festivals, Jazz Parties and concerts. He has many recordings on a variety of labels. The most recent recordings have been for Arbors Records

Arbors Records

Arbors Records is an independent American jazz record label based in Clearwater, Florida. It was founded by the family team of Mat and Rachel Domber in 1989, initially devoted to the recordings of their friend Rick Fay.-History:...

where he has recorded extensively in solo, trio and band format under his own name. He also has recorded many times as a sideman for Arbors. He also can be heard on several recordings on the Nagel-Heyer label (Hamburg, Germany).

Johnny continues to do Jazz festivals and parties around the United States and overseas, including Sweet & Hot in LA, Mat Domber's March of Jazz, Sacramento(Emperor in 2003), Odessa, Elkhart, and others.

Today he´s successful on tour in Germany with Clarinetist Peter Buehr an his Band.