Nelson Lunding

Nelson Lunding is a traveling Piano Man, a tradition that traces its roots back to the early 1890's. Nelson has played saloons, has been an itinerant troubadour, and recently a teacher and band leader who has taken his place as a Keeper of the Flame. He plays a rocking, muscular piano propelled by a driving left hand. It is a gripping kinetic music that demands  attention, and involves the audience in a true New Orleans blues and jazz tradition.  

Nelson began playing piano at the age of six in Westchester, New York and has been playing professionally from the age of twenty-one. As a teenager, he studied piano with Stuart Hemmingway, a blind, world-class jazz and blues player. Stuart taught him blues and jazz chords and patterns. In 1991 with youth, training and enthusiasm Nelson moved to New Orleans and started gigging with Bourbon Street bands. At twenty-one Nelson was singing and playing piano among the famous Bourbon Street bands. The World seemed to pass by the door that opened to Bourbon Street...Nelson learned the Blues during his fourteen years on Bourbon Street.

A year later he formed his own band called Nelson Lunding and Blues in the Pocket, and at the age of twenty-three he produced a CD titled "Whiskey and a Beer to Go". The band had success in New Orleans playing the Maple Leaf Bar and the House of Blues. Nelson has performed at Jazz Fest in New Orleans ten times with various groups, and has had the opportunity to play back-up for great musicians in New Orleans including: Johnny Adams, Walter Wolfman Washington and Ernie K-doe. He performed at WWOZ's Piano Night in 1998 and 2007. The New Orleans influence in Nelson's music is impossible to miss. He has created his own blend and style using the techniques of the New Orleans piano greats.

In 2007 and 2017 Nelson recorded CDs in the Cadillac Hotel, San Francisco, California. Both concerts were played on a magnificent 1884 Steinway Grand piano.     

In 2005 Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans, destroying Nelson’s home and livelihood. Katrina put Nelson into motion. Nelson kept traveling. He traveled a circuit of New Orleans, New York and San Francisco. Later Nelson was invited to the Yucatan and Oaxaca regions of Mexico, and further South to a cultural oasis --- Antigua, Guatemala. Nelson makes his home in Antigua, Guatemala where he is a figure in the jazz scene.

For more information see his musician Facebook https://www.facebook.com/antigua.piano.