The musician Prince said played the piano “perfectly”
Given how he claimed to have played 27 different instruments on his debut album, having Prince judge you on your musical ability might seem like a daunting prospect.
While a number of the instruments he was reported to have played overlap in terms of the skillsets required to play them, with many different keyboard instruments featuring in the list of things he was able to operate, possessing the musical dexterity to be able to play even four or five instruments to a reasonable degree of competence is still impressive. However, to be able to loosely attest that you’re able to play almost 30 is frankly mind-blowing.
But was Prince necessarily the best player in the world at any of these specific instruments? It’s probably fair to say that, despite him being lauded as a songwriter and producer, there are always going to be others who get ranked higher on their own respective instruments of choice. And in spite of his truly goddamn wide-ranging talents, he’s rarely, if ever, hailed outright as the greatest to have ever picked up any given instrument.
Take, for example, the trumpet. While Prince was able to knock out a tune on the brass instrument, he was by no means a prodigious talent, and he often assigned this duty to others on his records. If you’re going to talk about who the finest trumpet players to have ever walked the earth are, then perhaps you might want to look closer to the world of jazz, with artists such as Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis sitting close to the top of the pile.
It’s no secret that Prince was a massive fan of the latter of this trio, and even jammed with Davis on multiple occasions throughout their careers. What Davis is often noted for, on top of his skills on the trumpet, however, are his arrangements, and for this to be within your skillset, it usually requires a decent level of ability on more than just one instrument, or at least a vague understanding of how they work.
As well as being a virtuosic trumpeter, it turns out that Davis was also incredibly proficient on the piano, and on one occasion, when he was at Prince’s Paisley Park home and studio, he wowed the purple-clad icon with his ability on the ivories.
“I remember when Miles Davis came to my house,” Prince recounted in a 1997 interview. “As he was passing by my piano, he stopped and put his hands down on the keys and played these eight chords, one after the other. It was so beautiful; he sounded like Bill Evans or Lisa [Coleman], who also had this way of playing chords that were so perfect.”
He continued to assert his amazement at how he was able to play with such flair. “I was wondering whether he was playing games with me,” he added, “because he wasn’t supposed to be a keyboard player. And when he was finished, I couldn’t decide whether it was him or an angel putting his hands on the keys.”
While casual listeners of Davis’ work might be able to say that it isn’t that surprising to learn that he was also a skilled pianist, one person who certainly shouldn’t have been as stunned as he was is Prince, given how he was supposedly able to play considerably more than just one instrument. If he can do it, there’s no reason why Davis couldn’t do it either, and as much as Prince’s mind may have boggled at the idea, Davis’ effortless musicality should have been a dead giveaway as to his abilities.
