Born Bernard Nierow in Brooklyn in 1934, Peter Nero began his professional path as a pianist with Paul Whiteman before advancing into symphonic work that extended into the early 1960s. RCA Victor then signed the New York native and positioned him as a pop interpreter, an effort that produced his 1961 Grammy for Best New Artist. His sequence of lush orchestral albums ran through the early 1970s, after which he resumed a harder-edged jazz style by recording with a trio.
Nierow had taken up the piano in childhood and advanced quickly enough to perform Haydn concertos by age eleven. Restlessness soon surfaced, however, and classical music lost its hold once jazz captured his interest as a teenager. After finishing his studies at Brooklyn College he worked strictly as a jazz pianist, fashioning a swinging hybrid that merged jazz phrasing with classical technique.
Limited performing prospects led him to accept a saloon-pianist job at New York’s Hickory House. Dissatisfied with the artistic compromises, he tried his luck in Las Vegas without success and returned to a reduced position at the same club. Several years on the New York circuit followed until Stan Greeson, an RCA Records executive, took notice. Greeson signed the pianist, suggested the name Peter Nero, and urged him to incorporate pop standards such as “Over the Rainbow.”
Piano Forte, Nero’s debut album, appeared in 1961 and coincided with the launch of national tours; that same year brought the Grammy for Best New Artist. His popularity climbed through the early 1960s as the hybrid of pop, classical, swing, and bop became one of the era’s dominant mainstream sounds. He later served as musical director of the Philadelphia Pops Orchestra, where he regularly programmed classical arrangements of pop material. In the 1970s he concentrated again on jazz trios while still issuing occasional orchestral recordings. Peter Nero died on July 6, 2023, at the age of 89.
