Dave McKenna: Jazz pianist lauded as both solo artist and accompanist who played with Charlie Parker and Tony Bennett

Although he now counts as one of the music's great accompanists, Dave McKenna was rightly first regarded as one of the finest jazz piano soloists of the late 20th century.

He was outstanding for the whole of the second half of the century, but because he was a shy man his great talents were renowned for many years only among his fellow musicians. It wasn't until the 1970s that he received his just recognition as a great artist and the huge audiences that ensued. He was good enough to accompany Charlie Parker, but soon after he'd achieved that particular jazz Elysian field, the US Army sent him off to Korea to be a cook for a couple of years.

McKenna was uniquely gifted. He was a big, long-limbed man and he had a broad and powerful spread of hand. He played with colossal strength when required but also had a delicate and imaginative way with improvisation. His encyclopaedic familiarity with the Great American Songbook was staggering and he had a rhythmic sense of such instinct that he was one of the few jazz pianists who sounded at his best playing solo and without a rhythm section. He was able to play with convincing honesty in any style and blended Bebop licks with swing or the joyous stride piano style of which he was a master. He would move between all of these styles within the interpretation of one song.

But he disliked being called a jazz musician. "I play saloon piano," he claimed. "I like to stay close to the melody. I'm a player of tunes first and add my interpretations second."

Growing up in a musical family, McKenna took a few formal lessons from his mother, local nuns and from a local teacher, but was largely self-taught from listening to records on the radio. He had first begun picking out tunes on the piano when he was seven; by the time he was 12 he was playing at weddings. He loved the piano work of Nat "King" Cole, and cited Cole as his main inspiration. He learned from Cole's records and also held Teddy Wilson and Art Tatum in high regard. During his career he graced the bands of Charlie Ventura, Woody Herman, Gene Krupa, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, Buddy Rich and Bobby Hackett.

McKenna's life was driven by a great love of baseball that, for him, took precedence over his piano playing. The Boston Red Sox was his team. His audiences at the Copley Plaza hotel in Boston, where he was house pianist for many years, playing six nights a week, were sometimes disconcerted when, throughout the baseball season, he kept a small radio propped up next to the piano keyboard. He was determined not to miss a pitch.

He moved to Cape Cod at the end of the 1960s and worked there mainly as a solo pianist in bars. But his fame spread internationally and he soon gave recitals at home and worked in small bands with musicians like Ruby Braff and Joe Temperley. He toured England and Sweden in 1978 with the clarinettist Bob Wilber. He gave support when he toured abroad to Scott Hamilton and the younger group of mainstream musicians who had emerged.

McKenna was hard to get but much in demand by vocalists, who valued his considered and sympathetic accompaniments. One such was the superb Daryl Sherman, with whom he recorded several excellent albums, notably the 1999 Jubilee. He appeared on television with Rosemary Clooney and Tony Bennett. Whenever McKenna played in New York Bennett would make a point of going to listen to him as often as he could. "If he's playing, I want to be there," said Bennett. McKenna also played for some months at Eddie Condon's club in the city, where, according to the cornettist Bobby Hackett, they played "Whiskeyland jazz".

Condon, Hackett and McKenna were prodigious drinkers. "A lot of those years on the road I was drunk," McKenna said frankly. Eventually he contracted diabetes but chose to ignore it, continuing to drink, smoke and indulge his sweet tooth. "I suppose if I do what the doctor tells me and I cut out the rich food and the booze I'll live a little longer," he reflected. "But how will I know for sure?"

Brought down eventually by the diabetic neuropathy that first affected his right hand and later moved on to his legs, he stopped playing piano in public in 2002. His marriage had broken up and at first he lived alone in an apartment in Rhode Island. As his illness worsened he was cared for by his sister.

Fortunately McKenna's playing received the documentation that it deserved with many dazzling CDs, notably on the Concord, Arbors and Chiaroscuro labels. He received a great many citations, including some from mayors and state governors and one from President Bill Clinton.

Steve Voce

David J. McKenna, pianist: born Woonsocket, Rhode Island 30 May 1930: married 1959 Frances Wiggins (two sons); died State College, Pennsylvania 18 October 2008.