Interview by Todd Matthews

If you are looking for piano tunes on a lazy Sunday afternoon, look no further than the Cobalt Café. Since the Cobalt's owners rolled an old, black upright piano down Capitol Hill to their café last September, pianist Micah Huschler has been belting out the ragtime, jazz, roots country, and standard pop tunes to brunch-time crowds. I recently caught up with Huschler (who also plays piano in the honky-tonk band Dusty 45's) to talk about his weekend music showcase.

TODD MATTHEWS: It sounds like you can play any kind of music—jazz, roots country, Broadway tunes.

MICAH HUSCHLER: I try. I'm really into stride pianists such as Fats Waller, James P. Johnson, Willie 'The Lion' Smith. I also like boogie-woogie piano—guys such as Pete Johnson, Freddie Slack, Pinetop Perkins. And then there's the honky-tonk country piano, which is more rooted in gospel—guys such as Floyd Cramer and Hargus 'Pig'Robbins. Also some of the pop standards such as Ellington, Sinatra or Bobby Darin. I try to keep the music selection broad. The connection between all of them is that I'm not just playing jazz or bebop. I do a little bit, but more traditional styles. Even when I play Autumn Leaves, the arrangement is Louis Prima's. There's a little jazz influence there, but it's more about jump blues.

MICAH HUSCHLER
(PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY THE TABLET)

TODD MATTHEWS: When and where did you play piano?

MICAH HUSCHLER: I started on my third birthday, actually. I played classical music until I was fifteen. I studied in England for a little bit. At fifteen, I was trying to compose music, pop, things like that. I went to North Seattle Community College and was in a jazz class there. In the big band, there was a trumpet player named Billy Joe Huels who was in the Dusty 45's. The group was looking for a piano player, and I started playing with them. That was five-and-a-half years ago. Through them, I got into the whole roots music thing. I call it sort of 'roots American music piano style.' The Dusty 45's really got me into that. I listened to some of that music. I knew that I liked it, but I was green when I first started playing it. It took me about three or four years to really understand all the styles and build up a record collection.

TODD MATTHEWS: Sunday brunch at the Cobalt Café: what sort of things are you interested in doing musically at this venue?

MICAH HUSCHLER: Well, it's all instrumental. I don't expect people to be all ears. I try to run all the songs together because this is a background performance. It's more like a jukebox. I just want to provide an environment that is a little different than people are used to musically. Still, I think people are very familiar with this music. They have heard this music before in their lives.

Micah Huschler performs live every Sunday between 12:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. at the Cobalt Café on Capitol Hill.

This article originally appeared in The Tablet