Erroll Garner was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on June 15, 1921. He started playing piano when he was 3. He had 6 siblings and his family was quite musical. Garner’s twin brother Ernest and older brother Linton were also respected pianists and composers. His parents sang in the church choir and his father aspired to be a professional singer, but his severe asthma kept him from achieving his dream. He started out playing by ear and liked to imitate recordings that his mother played for the family at bedtime. Garner never took formal piano lessons and never learned to read music.

When he was 7, Garner started performing on a local radio station with a group called the Candy Kids. At 11, he was playing on riverboats and by 14, he was playing with saxophonist Leroy Brown.

Garner first traveled to New York in 1939 when he was working as an accompanist for singer, Ann Lewis. Soon after that he returned to New York to sub for Art Tatum in Tatum’s trio. He moved to New York permanently in 1944. He started playing with the Slam Stewart Trio in 1945.

Garner’s popularity started to skyrocket with the release of Laura
in 1946. The album sold half a million copies.  The following year, Cool Blues
, an album he recorded with Charlie Parker was released. Soon he replaced his nightclub performances with concert hall recitals. Because he was quite short 5′ 2″, he usually sat on phone books when he played the piano.

Garner spent the 60’s and early 70’s touring non-stop. Then in 1975, he stopped touring because of failing health. Soon after that he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He died on January 2, 1977. Many of his early compositions were lost because they were never written down. His most famous composition is Misty
.

Here is a performance from 1964. I couldn’t find any videos of him playing Misty, so this will have to do.