Jan August (born Jan Augustoff; September 24, 1904 – January 9, 1976) was an American pianist and

xylophonist The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Like the glockenspiel (which uses metal bars), the xylophone essentially consists of a set of tuned wooden keys arranged in the ...

. He had a hit with his version of "

Misirlou "Misirlou" ( el, Μισιρλού < tr, Mısırlı 'Egyptian' < ar, مصر ''Miṣr'' 'Egypt') is a folk song from the Eastern Mediterranean region. The original author of the song is not known, but Arabic, Greek, and Jewish musicians wer ...

" in 1947 with

Carl Frederick Tandberg Carl Frederick Tandberg (March 22, 1910 – August 26, 1988), was a bassist who recorded with Glen Campbell and Frankie Ortega. Biography He was born on March 22, 1910, in Dorchester, Boston where his father, Thorvald Martin Tandberg I (187 ...

. August was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, United States. He was self-taught and began his career at age 17 in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

, had hits with several other songs that blended classical styles and Latin beats. He was discovered in 1946 in a New York City nightclub by an executive for Diamond Records. The executive was so eager to have August with his label, he wrote the recording contract on one of the club's tablecloths. Early in his career August recorded on the Diamond label ("Misirlou" is on his album ''Piano Magic'' for Diamond). He played his hit for the Press Photographers' Ball in

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, in 1947, and in turn,

Harry Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...

responded by playing the "Missouri Waltz" for August. In the early 1950s, he was recording on Mercury; one notable Mercury side is a swinging and thoughtful arrangement of "Hot Lips". Later LP albums demonstrated a shift away from August's distinctive earlier style, toward the semi-satirical "honky-tonk" style of the late 1950s personified by such artists as Joe "Fingers" Carr. In 1974, a musician calling himself Jan August played an extended engagement at St. Petersburg's La Ronda restaurant. When a newspaper reporter for the ''

St. Petersburg Times The ''Tampa Bay Times'', previously named the ''St. Petersburg Times'' until 2011, is an American newspaper published in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. It has won fourteen Pulitzer Prizes since 1964, and in 2009, won two in a single ...

'' went to see him perform, she realized he did not look like Jan August and had a different musical style. She became suspicious and traced August through the musicians' union in New York City. August declined pressing charges, but indicated that his name could no longer be used by the other musician. August died in New York City of heart disease at age 71, and was survived by his wife, Bette, three daughters and six grandchildren.

References

External links

Jan August Papers
at the

Great American Songbook Foundation The Great American Songbook Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the music of the Great American Songbook. The Songbook Foundation's administrative offices are located on the Gallery lev ...

Jan August's "Misirlou" at the Internet Archive
1904 births 1976 deaths Mercury Records artists 20th-century American pianists American male pianists 20th-century American male musicians {{US-keyboardist-stub