Billy Georgette
Billy Georgette is a Canadian jazz pianist. Born William Albert Georgette on December 7, 1935 in Montreal, he began playing the piano at age nine, first studying with Florence Powers, then with Art Roberts. During his teenager years, he used the pseudonym Billy Marlin and played with Wimp Henstridge. After completing high school at Sir Georges Williams University, Georgette studied liberal arts at the college while working with the Buddy Jordan Band from 1956 to 1958. He lived in Los Angeles from 1959 to 1962, where he worked with trumpeter Joe Gordon among others. After returning to Montreal in 1962 and working in numerous bands around the city, he worked with Leroy Mason from 1966 to 1973, playing rhythm and blues. Other gigs include working with Errol Walters at Hotel de La Montagne, solo acts at the Cage aux Sports, Queen Elizabeth hotel and Abacus. His most recent performances have been with the Paradise Band at Biddles and the House of Jazz in Montreal. Georgette, who has lived most of his life in Montreal, Quebec, has been an important supporter and promoter of Jazz music in the city and has frequently provided support to musicians in many other genres. He occasionally appears at the Montreal Jazz Festival and is a regular performer at various venues in the city. Also an enthusiastic hockey historian, he was a founding member of the Society for International Hockey Research in 1991 and has spent much of his free time studying the history, writing an elaborate musical and developing a website about the Victoria Skating Rink and is considered to be the foremost authority on that historic arena. He also was a founding member of Hockey Heritage Montreal, a charitable organization formed in 2001, with the goal of re-building the Victoria Rink and developing a Montreal Hockey Walk of Fame.
As a writer / author, Billy has published the following books with Xlibris available on line
- 2014 The Rink
- 2014 La Patinoire
- 2014 Piano Lesson
- 2015 Victoria Rink Musical
- 2015 The Jitterbug Man
- 2015 Point Zero
- 2015 City in the Snow City in the Sun
As a musician, Billy has recorded the following CDs available on line
References
- http://www.jazzcitymtl.com/legends_and_icons/billy_georgette.html
- https://web.archive.org/web/20110706182733/http://www.houseofjazz.ca/bio_billy/
- http://www.hockeyheritage.org/index.php
- http://www.victoriarink.org
- https://web.archive.org/web/20120630174538/http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/2003/041003/news2.html
- http://wn.com/Billy_Georgette