Johnny Costa: The Music Behind Mister Rogers' Neighborhood

I've been listening to a lot of jazz piano music lately for some reason.  I think it may because I've grown kind of tired at the moment from other music I have been listening to, which has been a smattering of indie rock a la Miracle Legion and acoustic folk music from the likes of John Gorka .  I tend to listen to listen to music genres in cycles.  Anyway, I really started listening to jazz piano music when I began listening to my dad's friend Mark Randall's CD "Live at the Royal Café. Here's a link to Mark's site: MarkRandallnotes.com That CD opened me up to jazz music and from there I made the connection to Johnny Costa.  You may not recognize his name but if you ever saw an episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood you will in fact know his music.  Mr. Johnny Costa was the musical director for Mister Rogers' Neighborhood from when the show began, up to his death in 1996.  He and his trio played all of the music LIVE during the show.  You can see a clip of it at the bottom of this post from a PBS documentary. Johnny Costa obviously was an incredibly talented individual and I'm glad his music still survives today. I actually met Fred Rogers' when I was thirteen years old. I'll save that story for another post.  

I also posted a recording of the first song I ever wrote "Not About the Bike" written about Lance Armstrong and his determination to win his battle against cancer.  Since this is the start of my blog "Tuneskees", I thought it would be appropriate to start with the first song I wrote.  Enjoy,

Kevin