Piano Parade: Rosas Revisits it All, from Roller Rink to Rousing House Parties

Not many pianists are still performing professionally when their age is more than the number of keys on a piano. But at age 89, Gil Rosas has arranged to play what he says will be his final large public concert this September 13, at the Marjorie Luke Theatre, in what is, appropriately, a benefit for the Center for Successful Aging. But then it turns out that Rosas actually played on a Bösendorfer Imperial grand piano for private parties at Lord and Lady Ridley-Tree’s Montecito home, so the goalposts have moved. 

Shouldn’t be a problem for Rosas, a longtime Santa Barbara institution who officially “retired” in the early 1990s after having performed for decades at a number of (now vanished) well-loved venues of yesteryear. Talking it over is like a trip down memory lane for locals, as Rosas tickled the ivories as a solo pianist night after night at such shuttered places as the Santa Barbara Rollercade (on the Hammond B-3 organ), the Fiesta Bowl, and the Somerset and Olive Mill Bistro in Montecito. He played two floor shows every Saturday night with a small combo at the El Paseo, which still exists but long since moved on from such endeavors; and Rosas even served as the first music director at KEYT-TV when it opened in the early 1950s. 

“Fiesta Bowl was a 32-lane bowling alley that had a beautiful lounge called the Mural Room, where I basically made my debut as a solo piano bar artist,” he recalled. “At the TV station, I was on different shows, accompanying singers and dancers, or if somebody didn’t show up, I would play four or five solos. I also played background music for a cartoon show. I played at a lot of places all over town, and private parties, weddings, funerals, you name it. I’m sure I’ve forgotten a lot of them.”

Rosas’ formative years as a Santa Barbara native melded music from his parents’ home country with what was popular at the time. 

“My mother loved to sing, and she always had the radio on, always with Mexican songs, ballads, rumbas and boleros. I absorbed all of that,” he said. 

But it was also the Swing Era, and all those Great American Songbook tunes and musicals that also shaped his sound. 

“Our pastime was going to the movies, and I loved all of the music,” he said. “I think some of my most important training came from MGM, 20th Century Fox, and Warner Brothers.”

Rosas estimates that over the course of his career, he developed a repertoire of more than 1,000 songs, with material getting added until when the Top 10 Hit Parade morphed into the Top 40 in the rock ‘n’ roll era. “That’s when contemporary music was not of interest to me anymore,” he said. 

Astoundingly, he played his own instrumental versions of the songs, as well as excerpts of classical music – from memory. 

“I never used sheet music in my performances ever,” he said. 

In all those decades, though, Rosas never wrote a single song. 

“I’ve never been tempted to write,” he said. “But I improvise a great deal. When I was at the TV station, my nickname became Gil Fill because I always had to fill time.”

As to why he proved so popular to have worked steadily in piano bars for decades, Rosas said his answer was a little “selfish.” 

“I have to admit that in all the years that I have performed popular music and the music that’s in my brain, I have loved every moment of it. It comes from my soul and my heart and that’s never changed. I absolutely love it.”

That joy is sure to come through at Saturday’s Marjorie Luke show, where he plays what amounts to a retrospective of music from his career, along with a special guest or two, and video clips. But as it turns out, it may not be his last public performance.

“I think I am anxious to get my feet wet again.”