Stevenson J. Palfi, a New Orleans musical documentarian best known for "Piano Players Rarely Ever Play Together," a 1982 look at three generations of Big Easy piano greats, has died. He was 53.
Palfi died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound Dec. 14 at home, his family told the Times-Picayune of New Orleans. Palfi, who left a suicide note and a will, had been severely depressed after Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters destroyed years of files, photographs and other possessions at his home in the Mid-City area.
"His death was a tragedy for everybody," Jan Ramsey, editor and publisher of OffBeat Magazine, a New Orleans music publication, told The Times on Wednesday. "Stevenson was a valuable asset to the music community here in terms of preserving the culture."
"Piano Players Rarely Ever Play Together" focused on New Orleans keyboard luminaries Isidore "Tuts" Washington, Henry Roeland "Professor Longhair" Byrd and Allen Toussaint. Toussaint's songwriting hits include "Working in the Coal Mine," "Mother-in-Law" and "Southern Nights."
The documentary, which was frequently shown on PBS and is still in distribution, provided insight into the way the three players influenced one another's styles and showed the only time they ever rehearsed together for a joint concert.
Byrd died two days before the scheduled performance, and his jazz funeral, along with the Washington-Toussaint tribute concert, became part of the documentary.
"Piano Players Rarely Play Together," Times-Picayune movie writer David Baron said, was "a last-chance document of one key thread in the Big Easy's inimitable R&B tradition."
Ramsey said, "In terms of a preservation piece, it's remarkable, because there is very little [previous] footage of Professor Longhair or Tuts Washington, and when you get all three of them together in a studio, it's unprecedented."
Once described by his city's newspaper as "the Big Easy's big encyclopedia of music," Palfi also documented other Crescent City musicians, such as singer Ernie K-Doe and Preservation Hall banjoist Manny Sayles.
Palfi co-produced "Played in the USA," a 13-part series of video and film documentaries about American music for the Learning Channel. The 1991 series included "Papa John Creach: Setting the Record Straight," Palfi's documentary on the onetime fiddler with Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship.
