Brenner to perform at Cafe Django

Craig Brenner has played piano for more than 50 years.

At 8 p.m. Friday, he will perform a mix of musical styles and original compositions at
Cafe Django, where he is a long-time customer.

“I’ve written some pieces that I love to play,” Brenner said. “I play them all over, but I don’t have that many local solo piano performances.”

Brenner said he performs most often with his band Craig & The Crawdads.

He also performs infrequently with The Ragin’ Texans, a roots-rock and blues band.

“Sometimes, people refer to my playing as the ‘jazzy side of blues piano,’” Brenner said. “I mix in a sort of jazz approach, jazz feeling and jazz chords in my blues playing.”

Solo performances are an opportunity for Brenner to try out different styles, such as boogie woogie, rhythmic piano playing popularized in the early 20th century.

“If you’re playing in 4/4 time, the left hand plays eight beats in the measure,” Brenner said. “It’s sort of peppy. It moves fairly quickly. Some pieces move really fast.”

Brenner said pianists traditionally played familiar melodies or improvised with the right hand to keep barrelhouse customers dancing for hours.

In August, Brenner performed at the Grant Street Jazz Festival. He said the next time he ate at the cafe, the owners invited him to perform there sometime.

“Then there was a vacancy on the schedule,” Brenner said. “Hopefully there will be enough people there that they’ll bring me back.”

Brenner also performs blues and jazz with his wife, Lori, who sings. 

“You have to do a lot of different things if you want to work in music,” Brenner said.

- Kate Thacker